1985: A LOOK BACK: Meanwhile, at The Weekly (12/29/85)

1985: A LOOK BACK

Meanwhile, at The Weekly

1985 was a year of change at The Weekly. It was a year in which the newspaper said good-bye to a few staff members and greeted others. In fact, the coming and going of the staff was so commonplace that at one point, we even considered installing a revolving door in The Weekly's editorial offices.

But throughout the past 12 months, The Weekly continued to document the significant people and events in Ukraine and the Ukrainian community in the diaspora. It portrayed significant and interesting men and women, painted the community in all its moods and tried to explain why things are the way they are in the Ukrainian community. And The Weekly served as a training ground for a remarkably eclectic crew of the community's writers and photographers.

The year's first major staff change came in June, when assistant editor Natalia Dmytrijuk left The Weekly to look for greener pastures in the field of creative writing. Ms. Dmytrijuk, who wants to become a poet when she grows up, was with The Weekly for almost a year.

But perhaps the biggest change of the year occurred when associate editor George Zarycky strolled out of the editorial offices one sultry summer day to fill a vacancy at the Park Avenue offices of the A. Philip Randolph Institute in New York. Mr. Zarycky came to The Weekly in 1980 and has since had some of his work published in "a real newspaper": earlier this year, two of his articles on the Ottawa Human Rights Conference and dissent in Ukraine appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. We were sad to see George leave us, but, as it turns out, he seems to be at The Weekly offices more often than at APRI.

As the size of The Weekly staff dwindled over the summer months, editor Roma Hadzewycz held the fort. In the nearly two months prior to the arrival of fresh troops, Roma was without a regular staff in the office...and yet the presses didn't stop.

Fortunately, in early September, a breath of Canadian air swept into The Weekly's editorial offices with the arrival of Michael B. Bociurkiw from Ottawa. Michael's father (Dr. Bohdan R. Bociurkiw) is almost as popular as he is - especially since it has now become fashionable to study Soviet politics at Carleton University. Since leaving the Great White North, Michael has been busy at work trying to convert the newspaper into The Canadian Weekly. He also occupies his time wading knee-deep in Ukrainian student politics.

Finally, the full-time staff of The Weekly grew to its normal size with the arrival in November of Natalia A. Feduschak from, Washington. Natalia's initiation to The Weekly concluded last weekend, when she was shipped off to the Toronto CeSUS Congress to make sense of the Ukrainian students' version of "Another World."

The year-end review of events at The Weekly wouldn't be complete without mention of our part-time workers and contributors: the ebullient intern Chrystyna Lapychak came in twice weekly and during holidays to help out with writing and editing (with her "shadow," Natalka Voronka, in tow); Hanya Diuk - the only Oxford-educated person ever to work at The Weekly - who spent part of her summer providing copy; Marta Kolomayets - whose byline appeared more often in The Weekly than when she worked here full-time - who submitted articles on the festival circuit, Church happenings and her hometown of Chicago; and our newest addition, Chicago stringer Marianna Liss, who is never at a loss for story ideas.

Of course, we continued to be indebted to our regular (and not-so-regular) columnists; those who have taken the time to write us (keep the mail coming); and last, but not least, our corps of anonymous stringers who send us myriad clippings and write-ups.

We also send our thanks out to The Weeky's layout person and consultant-at-large Hilary Zarycky, and typesetter Awilda Arzola, who this year began typesetting in Ukrainian.

In the New Year, we look forward to the challenge of continuing to provide our readers with a weekly dose of news, commentary, analysis and discovery. We invite all of our readers to stay with us as we try to interpret the events that shape the future of Ukrainian community life in the diaspora. We promise to try to provide our readers with fair, balanced and comprehensive reporting.