Goodbye to the TNS

BY JAXON HANSARD / Sports Editor

With the colder weather and holidays coming around Tarleton and other universities will be congratulating and graduation a fall class of 2024 college graduates. 
 

I will be one of them and while it can be very exciting and overwhelming at times it signals an end of a chapter in my book. 
 

Coming into college I would not have thought that I would be graduating four years later to go write sports stories for a county newspaper. I came here with not a solid idea of what I wanted to so I would start with a business degree because business equals money right? 
 

Then with the extra free time I had because of school and the lingering effects of COVID, I rediscovered my love for sports. 
 

After a year and a few weeks I would change my major to sports communication. I figured if I was already consuming sports content a majority of the time why not try to get a job in it? 
 

I would have to learn (or improve) to write about what I like so I took a news writing and gathering class taught by Mr. Lewter. He was an interesting teacher that would become important in my college life. Lewter approached me towards the end of the semester about what I wanted to do as a career and my interest. 
 

He presented an interesting opportunity to me to test myself and try something new but something I was apparently good enough to catch his eye about with newswriting. 
 

I later joined the Texan News Service (TNS) While there were always early struggles I enjoyed what I was doing. I could always have done better and sometimes I would criticize myself too much or have an idea for a story or fix for my most recent work till later but I enjoyed the process. 
 

Writing was fun and I had a goal with it. Besides the most important final score that people wanted, I was able to bring a more feature-style approach to the sports stories that would focus on the players and coaches and their contributions. I wanted students to be more informed on Tarleton teams other than, “they lost they suck or they won they’re good”. 
 

The players have skills and the coaches are there to put them in the best situations, there’s flow and styles to each game that affect how Tarleton plays. I wanted the audience to know that while being able to highlight certain things I noticed that affected the Texan’s play. While it was only three semesters, a lot happened to me and the Texan News Service.
 

Writing for Lewter has a great experience. I saw a few different editors and chiefs and with each one the office and news flowed differently. I was able to see the staff grow from eight to 17, We started a new website and were able to write more stories and share more stories with an audience and families online, We acquired Tarleton’s historic JTAC paper and got to be more recognized. I made some friends and memories in my time writing for the TNS/JTAC and I will take them and their lessons with me as long as I remember. 
 

One thing I will miss is the structure and space that the newsroom offers. I had classes in the newsroom so I had to be there but other times it was open just to work, wait, write, and talk with whoever. I always knew what I would be doing on Tuesdays. I knew the people that I would be around and we were all just a little nosey which isn’t a bad thing  I think.