THELEAVEN.ORG | VOL. 37, NO. 6 | SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
AND WE’RE OFF!
The Leaven launches new website, plus paper redesign By Anita McSorley anita.mcsorley@theleaven.org
K
ANSAS CITY, Kan. — As the parent of two college students this year, I have more reason than most to appreciate Oscar Wilde’s famous line: “I am not young enough to know everything.” But as the managing editor of The Leaven, I make a point of never underestimating the energy, enthusiasm and sheer unadulterated talent of the young Catholics of this archdiocese. In fact, I can even be accused of banking on it. When I proposed to editor Father Mark last spring that we bypass the usual process of constructing a new website — i.e., hiring it out to a third party — in favor of tackling it in-house, I’m sure his “gulp!” could be heard for miles. But when I explained who I planned to tap to do the actual work, he gave a great big thumbs-up — then stayed as far away from the project as possible. We always knew that longtime webmaster Darin Hansen (who doubles as the technology guru at St. Agnes School in Roeland Park) would be a big part of the makeover. Because we would be bringing the site over from an HTML environment to something more userfriendly, we knew we needed his knowledge of the current site and usage patterns, as well as his coding expertise, in on the ground level. But his full-time job didn’t allow him — or us, for that matter — the jillions of hours necessary to build an entire site. As luck would have it, two sisters who had interned with us before — Katie and Libby Hyde of Good Shepherd Parish in Shawnee — were both available for summer work. Although we had previously utilized their writing skills for The Leaven (both have won writing awards for the paper), they had many skills yet to tap. And so, long before the official beginning of summer, we had decided to build a WordPress site, using the appropriately named theme “Fearless.”
CHANGES
The summer of the interns The decision to go with a WordPress site was easy enough. We needed something that anyone in our office could post to — even reporters in the field. But the number of decisions that followed the selection of our theme (a
Pope Francis makes annulment process easier. Asks that it be free. Page 3
template that provides the basic architecture for a WordPress site) was truly staggering. And there were the occasional dispiriting moments. “It was pretty daunting,” admitted Katie. “We had less than four months to design a website, train the staff in how to use it and troubleshoot any technical issues before the interns all
GAME ON
Catholic high school football kicked off, and The Leaven caught the action. Page 8-9
went back to college.” Libby agreed. “Honestly, the biggest problem to overcome with building the site was the sheer size of the project itself,” she said. But working together helped. “Libby actually brought more technical knowledge to the table,” said >> See “NEW” on page 5
TRUE BLUE
Archbishop Naumann honors police and firefighters with a Blue Mass. Page 16