Day ends with Cigar staff putting another paper to bed

Earl Slade sits in front of the computer at 10:05 p.m. He has been in Room 125 of the Memorial Union for several hours, working with reporters from The Good Five Cent Cigar, helping them write their stories.

"Ariella Ben-Dov," he says to News Editor Shaun Boutwell, who sits next to him. Slade raises his hand to the screen. "See, I don't even know who this Ben-Dov is, but now I want to know her. I like that."

Boutwell laughs and takes a bite out of a frozen Snickers bar and twists his face.

"I'm glad I spent a dollar fifty on this," he says. "How can you sell something with freezer burn on it. Isn't that wrong?"

Slade has been the writing coach for the newspaper for more than two years and comes faithfully every Wednesday night. A graduate of the URI Journalism Department, Slade now works as a dispatcher for the Pawtucket Police Department.

It is not long after I get to the Cigar office that I have a job to do. The photographer who was supposed to photograph the Student Senate meeting did not show up. So, I take the camera and head up to a subcommittee meeting to take a photograph at almost 11 p.m.

At the meeting, the Elections Committee is having a debate about ballots that were missing from a referendum students voted on during the past two days. And sitting close to the group of student senators is News Editor Christopher Barrett, scribbling notes in his notebook.

Later, at about 11:30 p.m., while I am editing the photograph of the meeting, Barrett finally comes back to the office to write his story.

At 11:59 -- April 20 nearing its end -- he is still writing, while Editor-in-Chief Robert Hanson and Boutwell sit in the production room and finish editing the other stories for Thursday's newspaper.