While our managing editor is away from her desk, focusing her energies on aggrandizing her clan and the human species, the rest of the personnel listed at the right side of this page are tending to the magazine in her absence. Well, not exactly this magazine you’re reading now; before she left for maternity leave, Tasha Anderson had a hand in completing this month’s issue. Every part, that is, except for the final flourish of this letter.

That duty falls to me. So here I am, addressing you on behalf of the magazine. And especially on behalf of this company’s owners. In a way, on behalf of its past custodians, such as Jim Martin and Vern McCorkle. Heavy is the mantle of stewardship, as we tend the hearth for the benefit of generations yet unborn—or freshly born, in the case of Tasha’s blessed offspring.

So I ask myself, how would Tasha write this?

Not with a hearth metaphor, if I know her half as well as I think I do. She’d probably start with a simple introduction.

Okay. Well, my name has been in the masthead for two and a half years. Before I joined this publication, I was in the news business for more than twenty years as a radio announcer.

Indeed, my first paying news gig was during the Arctic Winter Games in 1996, working for KTUU as a field assistant. This month’s article about the games in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough brought back memories of that long, intense week: the slopes at Arctic Valley, the biathlon track at Kincaid Park, and the gym at Gruening Middle School, modified with plywood walls. The track where I used to run each Friday during 7th grade PE class was the venue for indoor soccer, which was replaced in 2016 with futsal. The difference, I’ve learned, is that futsal players can’t bounce the ball off of walls.

That week was also the first time I handled a mobile phone, issued by KTUU to its crews. To this day, I answer my phone by saying “This is Scott” rather than “Hello” because the first call I received was from someone at the TV station unsure about which gray brick they were dialing.

Thus, Tasha, if she were in my place (which she always is; her place is where I’m putting myself), would introduce herself with a warm “Hello,” but I will simply say: this is Scott, and I’ll be your steward for the next few months, caring for Tasha’s previous baby while she welcomes her new one.