The Spire

Ben Lepper ‘25 and Nathan Howard ’25

Editors-In-Chief

On the front of every issue of The Spire, you’ll see that we promote ourselves as the flagship campus newspaper of Holy Cross since 1925.

Next year is 2025. 

It may be hard to believe, but the 2024-2025 academic year will also be Volume C of The Spire. This little paper has been around for 100 years now. It’s seen WWII, the Cold War, the assassination of JFK, the first man on the moon, the September 11th attacks, the federal legalization of gay marriage, and so many more major historical events. 

We’ve gone through a few names in our time. First, we were The Tomahawk. Next, we became The Crusader. And now, most recently, we adopted the moniker of The Spire. Regardless of what name we’ve published under, one thing has remained the same: we are the premier option on campus for student journalism, and we have been for a century now.

Fundamentally, we believe that everyone inherently has the right to share their beliefs. Leaf through past issues and you’ll see: we have welcomed all writers, regardless of background, skill level, and belief system, for as long as I can remember.

And that leads us here. One hundred years of Crusader journalism.

We are honored and privileged to have the opportunity to lead the paper through this milestone. You only turn 100 once, obviously. So, we’re going to do everything we can to make the 100th year of The Spire its best one yet.

This year, you can expect a semi-frequent column called the Centennial Alumni Report. We will be featuring previous members/editors of the paper and seeing what they’re up to these days, as well as how The Spire and Holy Cross helped them figure out what they wanted to do in the real world. The first installment of the Report is in the Features section of this issue, featuring Dan Shaughnessy ’75, a former Chief Sports Editor who is known widely for his work with the Boston Globe.

You can also expect what you’ve come to expect from The Spire: high-quality student journalism from all walks of life on campus. This year, all of our sections will be led by new chiefs: Kate Santini on News, Alexandra Berardelli on Opinions, Mack Hughes on Eggplant, Will McHale on Features, and Aiden Konold on Sports. Meredith McDonough will be the chief of web editing, Sophia Mariani and Sabine Hinkaty will be leading the copy editors, and our social media accounts will be run by Elizabeth Palmieri and Molly Landis. It’s a phenomenal group of chiefs, and we cannot wait to see what they do with their sections and platforms this year. And, outside of the chiefs, we have nearly limitless talent running through our paper right now. We, as Editors-In-Chief, could not be more excited for this year.

Welcome to The Spire’s Centennial. Let’s make it a good one.