Well, its January again, and that means I've been editor of The Herald for a full year. When I took over, I had a head full of dreams for expanding and improving the magazine. Most of them have come true. Some of the 1998 milestones, and the people who helped propel us to them, are listed below:

Cover Art.

I've always enjoyed opening my mailbox and finding an attractive magazine. My guess was Great Lakes members would feel the same, so I contacted my old vocational school, Columbus Northeast Career Center. Even though the only payment I could offer was copies of issues for their portfolios, commercial art instructor Anna Ackers was sold. She assigned her class to create cover art for The Herald. Their work is what you've been seeing.

Regular Departments.

My favorite gaming magazine is The Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter (MWAN), which features multitudes of reg ular columns covering figure or product reviews, campaign reports, convention calenders, etc. Call me a "MWAN-abee," but I set out to do the same with The Herald. I thought I'd sweat filling the "From the Armorer's Forge" column most, scrambling to line up products for people to review. However, the idea caught fire. Members hammered out regular reviews of products they'd purchased, especially Darryl Smith and Ray Garbee (the hammer and tongs of the Forge). I'm also indebted to the members and hobby store owners who updated me on new releases and scheduled games being held "Down at the Hobby Store" (particularly The Soldiery's Eric Adamaszek).

More Pages.

Originally, The Herald's size was limited to what a single first class stamp would pay for (six sheets of paper equaling 24 pages in "digest format"). I wanted more. Treasurer Scott Savory persevered, eventually landing us a bulk rate permit (after others had given up). This pretty much gives The Herald as many pages as we want. Scott also helped decipher the Post Office's instructions on sorting, labeling and packaging bulk mail. Etc. There are many more I should thank, foremost would be those who wrote feature stories like Terry Hollern, Bob Graham, Gavin Tovrea, Dennis Frank, and Brian O'Leary. Craig Charron contributed in several departments. Finally, our advertisers deserve thanks for making my excesses possible!