BY DIGHAN KELLY
Staff Writer

As the school year draws to a close and graduation approaches, The Purbalite is announcing its team of editors for the 2014-15 school year.

Juniors Emily Blystone and Julie Powell will work as news editors. The two previously worked as copy chief and sports editor, respectively. Combined, they bring four years of experience to next year’s team.

Juniors Allison Koerbel and Dillon Hawrylak will run a new combined position, serving as features and design editors. Koerbel, finishing her second year with the paper, designed the two-page center spreads in each issue this year. Hawrylak, completing his first year, will work with Koerbel to design and edit the features pages and the center spreads.

In other moves, junior Morgan Schmitt will serve as sports editor; juniors Casey Montana and Elma Letic will take over as photo editors; freshman Laura Harper and junior Sami Scherrer will be the new copy chiefs; and sophomores Lauren Schugg and Allison Perston will serve as the new Internet editors.

The future editors have several goals for the next school year.

“We want to be less stressed about the issues and get them out to people faster, so that we’re not working right up to deadlines,” Blystone said.

“Our goals definitely are to think of the best ideas that we can and to incorporate as many students into each issue as possible,” Koerbel said.

The Purbalite’s staff has grown in the past year, and now includes more than 40 students.

The standard goal of six issues per year was met this year, and each issue increased from 16 pages last year to 20 pages this year.

“It really showcases the thought that goes into the details of The Purbalite,” Powell said.

The Purbalite webpage, purbalite.net, has also gained ground.

There were 17,000 page views at the website in 2013, more than double the 2012 amount. This includes visitors from 50 countries. The staff wrote 190 web page stories in 2013, also double the number from 2012. April 2014, meanwhile, saw the most page views ever in a month, at 4,300.

“It’s really cool because it will attract more people to know about the newspaper and look at it,” Koerbel said.