With the birth of a new year comes big changes for The JTAC, the official student newspaper of Tarleton State University.
In Dec. of 2020, The JTAC lost three of its editorial staff as they moved forward to bigger and better things. Jess Whisenant, our previous Multimedia Editor, got accepted into the nursing program here at Tarleton and is still working as a Resident Leader on campus. Eric Tedana and Klaire Brock, our previous News Content Editor and Editor-in-Chief respectively, both graduated with their degrees. Although we are sad to see them go we are incredibly excited to move forward this semester with our new editor team.
We have added two completely new members to our staff this semester. Cooper Moring and Kayla Laseter will be our Multimedia Editor and our News Content Editor respectively. All of our editors will be a part of our print nights, where we do our final edits to the paper before sending it to the printer, and our distribution days, where we put the paper out on our news stands all across campus. Each editor also has individual responsibilities specific to their job for the paper.
Moring is a senior communications major with plans to graduate this spring. Moring if from Cleburne, Texas and his mother was a previous JTAC employee.
“I am proud to be carrying on the family legacy of working for The JTAC,” Moring said.
He will be in control of all of our social media accounts and will help to keep our website up to date.
You can follow us on Instagram @thejtac1919, on Twitter @TheJTAC1919 and on our Facebook page @thejtac. You can also read our latest issues and articles online at our website www.jtacnews.com and on Issuu at jtacnews1919.
Laseter is a junior kinesiology major with plans to become a pediatric physical therapist after graduation. She will be in charge of doing the first round of edits to our stories before print night and distributing our stories to our contributors for them to develop.

“I would say I have many outstanding traits, but the ones that are the most noticeable would have to be the fact that I am determined, reliable and responsible. I also consider myself to be introverted, devoted and creative,” Laseter said.
Laseter is also the best friend to Blake Smith, our new Creative Editor.
Smith has been a contributor with us since 2020 and is a junior agriculture education major. She will be in charge of making sure that we have photos for each of our articles and creating the layouts for each issue.
“I’m most excited about applying for the Teacher Education Program this semester. I just can’t wait to become a teacher. Fun fact I am horrible at math but I would definitely teach third grade math if it was offered [to me],” Smith said.
Then there’s me, Cassie, I am a senior engineering major from Waco, Texas. I started my journey at McLennan Community College then moved to Stephenville to attend Tarleton. I started working for The JTAC as a contributor my first semester here in the fall of 2019. Then last semester I was given the chance to be the Creative Editor.
During my time as the Creative Editor I learned so much about being a part of a newspaper. I spent a good portion of my time either studying or working and I got to create some of the work that will live in my portfolio for years to come. Like most newspapers, we write in Associate Press (AP) style and some of the techniques I learned have already improved my writing skills beyond what I used to imagine that they could be.
I am so proud of how hard our team worked last semester and getting the chance to lead a new team is really a dream come true.
Smith and I have put together a good portion of this issue by ourselves and I can already say that she is a very hard worker. She has been a great help in designing the layout of this issue and writing several articles.
Every member of our team is an incredible asset that we couldn’t run smoothly without.
I believe that this semester the team will learn a ton including myself. This past week I have gotten to learn a lot about teaching others by helping Smith learn to use Adobe Indesign, the software that we use to create our paper’s layouts.
The skills we learn by working for The JTAC might not seem applicable to some of our majors on surface level, however, there are countless ways to use the skills we learn here. Learning to teach others and to communicate efficiently is something that working in our office has taught me that is applicable to any career. Learning to efficiently edit your own writing and how to conduct a proper interview are two of the skills that I aim to teach every person on our staff because every major and every career requires good communication skills.
By the end of this semester I aim for my team to have learned valuable life skills and to be proud of the work that we publish. I also can’t wait for our readers to watch as we grow together as a team and produce great newspapers.