If you're a Collegian alum who reads The Digital Collegian regularly, or perhaps you receive the hard copies of The Daily Collegian or The Weekly Collegian, it's likely the question, "What's going on up there in Happy Valley?" crossed your mind at least once, maybe twice.

It's definitely something we in the newsroom were asking ourselves this year.

Did Penn State or State College officials put something in the water?

Were students and community members bored because the football season doesn't stretch into spring and, therefore, searching for new ways to keep themselves entertained?

That's not to make light of the fact that tragedies occurred throughout the semester; it's just mind-boggling that so many things could happen in the span of 15 weeks.

But we didn't exactly complain, either. For better or worse, news is news, and there's nothing better than being on campus and seeing students clutching their copies of the Collegian or reading it in class - not just doing the crossword or sudoku puzzles.

Students climbing out of sixth story windows; Penn State reinforcing discriminative behavior (but if the Lady Lion basketball coach does it again, she'll be in trouble); quite literally, one death or murder after another; a winning football team; several apartment fires; a football player charged with sexual assault, only later to have one of the charges dropped; the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) disbandment; the list goes on.

And that list doesn't include the forest fire at Tussey Mountain, the two additional student deaths or the lockdown at Old Main to prevent student protesters from walking in the building, all of which happened during finals week.

You didn't see them on our Web site, though. Unfortunately, we at the Collegian are still students and had to take our final papers and exams somewhat seriously.

Quite honestly, it's a wonder that the cops/fires/courts, football, administration and USG reporters, not to mention the beat editors, photographers and the rest of the newsroom, were able to show up everyday to the office smiling and ready for another day.

And it's safe to say that their hard work paid off: Our circulation was consistently through the roof, sometimes even surpassing the 20,000 mark. Had you asked me or any other staff member at the start of all this if that was possible, chances are the answer would have been no.

Thankfully, and contrary to last year, the Collegian was not at the center of any on-campus controversy, either.

We had our share of personnel changes, such as a new managing editor of news to kick off the spring semester, as well as a fall semester columnist being fired.

We also had our share of disappointments, such as the Web site redesign project being a bit more complicated than previously anticipated.

But despite any distractions, our newsroom staff of nearly 200 people performed beautifully under pressure.

We would not have been so successful were it not for the positive, upbeat attitudes emanating from our beat editors and reporters.

Preparations for next year by 2006-07 editor in chief Erin James are under way. A few of the features we can look forward to will be breaking news updates posted more frequently online, hopefully a new look for The Digital Collegian and an extended, online opinion section.

We already took a step toward a more comprehensive opinion section this year by tackling a national issue in editorial form, which accompanied our local editorial, everyday. We also redesigned the opinion page in its entirety to give it more of a fresh and modern feel for readers to latch onto.

Individually, several Collegian staffers were also extremely successful. Three of our staffers earned Dow Jones Newspaper Fund internships this summer, and will be traveling to places as varied Indianapolis, Ind., and Roanoke, Va., to work as copy editors.

We won awards in several different categories from the Collegiate Keystone Press Awards in the features and spot news photography, and written review categories, as well as several Gold Circle awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for sports writing, design presentation and spot news photography.

Overall, everyone did a great job doing what Collegian journalists do best: covering the university and community in a comprehensive manner.

For that, we are extremely proud, and hope that you, as Collegian alumni and readers, are too.