Celebrating 10 years of Fusion Magazine
Kate Common, one of the founding members of Fusion, reviews her speech notes with current staff member Brittany Rees at the Fusion 10th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, April 13. The gala was held in the student center balcony ballroom and invited current staff members and alumni to join for an evening of dinner and speakers. Photo by Meg Billy.
Past editors, advisers, faculty and staff came to celebrate Fusion Magazine’s 10-year anniversary on April 13 in the Kent Student Center Ballroom.
“Student media can provide a voice,” said Kate Common, previous Fusion adviser and Kent State alumna. “We wanted to create a publication that would promote awareness about LGBT issues, not just in the LGBT community, but the greater Kent community.”
Showcasing all 10 years of Fusion magazine covers in front of the room, large posters and previous magazine copies helped celebrate what Fusion is about.
“We wanted to make sure when they opened [the magazine] that we will suck them in with great journalism,” said Mandy Jenkins, first Fusion editor and Kent State alumna talking about the first issue of the magazine. “I wanted to tell these stories. We wanted to tell stories about the LGBT community that everyone will read.”
Jenkins held two different copies of Fusion, the very first 2003 copy and a Fall 2012 copy showing the difference between the covers.
“With the first two issues of Fusion, we kept it under the covers, literally. It was intentional at the time,” Jenkins said. “[Now] you can put a boy with his shirt off on the cover. It’s great just to see how much everything has grown and changed.”
Jackie Bergeron, current editor-in-chief of Fusion, said she wanted to make Fusion bigger and better to celebrate the 10 years.
“Planning the party was a big way to show our excitement,” Bergeron said. “I’m very happy how the party turned out.”
Fusion Magazine will also commemorate 10 years of the magazine with the Spring 2013 issue.