Seasons changing on Gazette sports pages

If you haven't noticed, the seasons already have changed on The Gazette's sports pages.

Gone are the golf, baseball and softball stories summer brings. Football is back and, starting today, it's game week for Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa, as well as Coe, Cornell, Luther and Upper Iowa.

Our GameDay section returns in Saturday's edition of the paper and The Final Score is back starting next Sunday.

What that means is this page, our community-driven 'Your Page,” will go on hiatus until after the college football season, likely late November or early December.

That doesn't mean you get a break, however. Keep writing about your passions. Keep telling your stories. We will find a home for them in The Gazette and, definitely, on www.thegazette.com

We started this community journalism project in December of 2011, not knowing what to expect. We have since filled 150 pages with your stories and photos.

This past year included some great tales from some of our regulars - Daren Schumaker of Team 99 Counties, Erin Moeller and her running trials, Cody Scharf with his fitness and health tips and Steve Charters with his golf tips - and some wonderful stories by newcomers like Michelle Barker, John Lawrence Hanson and Charlie Funk,

Thanks to all who contributed and, of course, keep writing.

But with every ending, there is a beginning.

At some point next month, I will begin visiting high schools and talking journalism with interested students for the fifth year in a row.

I can't wait to share my passion for media, for writing, for journalism with a new flock of eager students. As I tell the students each year, good journalism is not dead, it's just changing and this is an exciting, albeit challenging, time to be in media.

And it all starts with good writing.

We're actually already off to a great start with a pair of summer interns - Kyle Schepanski of Anamosa and Jacob Miller of Cedar Rapids Xavier - spending 40-plus hours here through the Kirkwood Workplace Learning Connection. Aaron Carter of Iowa City West has visited and recorded a podcast, with plans for to do more.

As in past years, we will publish the students' work at www.thegazette.com/iowa-prep-sports and share some in the newspaper.

We also have prizes for the student journalists, including T-shirts and blankets. Contributor's names also will go into drawings where we will give away three Kindle Paperwhite tablets and a GoPro camera. We will, once again, award two $500 scholarships to students at the end of the year.

If you want me to visit your school, contact me at the email below.

l Comments: (319) 368-8696; jr.ogden@thegazette.com