For Sue:

Students, faculty and staff in Franklin Hall might know Sue Zake as the fun, charming and extremely intelligent woman wearing hiking pants who seemed to live in the newsroom at the end of the second floor hallway.

Alumni may remember her as the dedicated professor who taught the difficult senior-level journalism class required to graduate.

To us, the editorial board of The Kent Stater, our newsroom adviser Sue has been our best teacher, our greatest mentor and our biggest supporter.

She is a really badass person, too.

In July, Sue became editor-in-chief of Signal Akron, a nonprofit newsroom serving our Ohio communities. The announcement of her new position was extremely bittersweet to hear because it meant Sue would be leading a team that will produce vital journalistic content, but it also meant she will no longer be our adviser.

The words “thank you” do not even begin to express our gratitude to Sue Zake, who had been involved with The Kent Stater and KentWired newsroom in a multitude of positions for over a decade.

Sue is someone we turned to for simple things like plastic silverware, which she had a stash of in her office, to the complex (and confusing) processes of analyzing police reports and court proceeding documents. She was – and still is – the queen of anything related to public records, too.

Sue seemed to know something about everything, and in her years as a photojournalist and later an editor at the Akron Beacon Journal, in addition to her stints with the Columbus Dispatch and Tampa Tribune, she gained the knowledge and experience we can only dream of having.

While we could fill up all 56 pages of this newspaper with things we are thankful for, grateful for and all the other “fuls” for Sue, here are a few pieces of gratitude:

Sue, we’re thankful for all the times we would come to you for help, and you would end up telling us stories about all your adventures or your advice on life or your dozens of cats. (She doesn’t really have a dozen cats, but sometimes that sounded like an accurate number.)

We’re grateful for the time you spent editing our stories, working with us to plan budgets and travel, answering our late-night Slack messages, listening to our concerns (and occasional complaints) and being there for us.

All. The. Time.

We thank you wholeheartedly for treating us as capable and smart journalists — not just student journalists.

Sue, your passion for journalism shows in everything you do, and that energy will continue to make a difference in Northeast Ohio. (We invite you readers to check out her medium’s website for all of the important and fantastic work she and her staff will produce.)

We will miss you immensely, Sue, and we know you will do amazingly in your new endeavor. Signal Akron is extremely lucky to have you.

And we’ve been real lucky, too.

Love,

The Kent Stater Editorial Board

Izzy, Grace S., Matt, Audrey, Kelsie, Jacob, Leah, Annalexis, Grace C., Anneliese, Katie, Savana, Emma, Anthony, Janson and Grace D.