No one thinks about what it’ll be like when they leave a place they’ve become attached to.

No one says on that O-A-R day, ‘I wonder what it’ll be like my last semester here.’

No one realizes that all of a sudden, instead of worrying about registering for classes or where to live next semester or what degree program categories to cross off next that, oh yeah, this place won’t be home anymore.

The big projects and 10-page papers will not be remembered as easily as the grades they produced. Graduates don’t say ‘geez that was a great transition in paragraph 14′, they say ‘yep, because of that paper, I didn’t have to take that class again.’

The trips to Steak n’ Shake at 3 a.m. after Herald production nights will be at the top of my memory list. The conversations and laughs there even higher.

The people who do and have worked at this newspaper will be up there,too.

It’s been eight semesters of working with some of the best college journalists in the country.

They won’t be forgotten after all the internships we’ve competed for against each other. Maybe it’s because we’ll be working together soon at The Courier-Journal, the Herald-Leader, the Messenger-Inquirer or another newspaper. It’ll be impossible to forget the people we sat in this office with for 50, 60, 70 hours each week. They’re the same people we went to conventions with, played scavenger hunts with and whipped-creamed at the end of each semester.

Those people helped me get internships in St. Louis, Clarksville, Tenn., and Lexington.

If our peers helped get us through, our professors helped pave the way.

Remember those days when resumes and cover letters needed copy editing and clips needed copying?

Paula Quinn, Harry Allen, Jim Highland and Bob Adams should all be amateur psychologists for the non-office hour time they spend aiding the next generation of Western journalists.

Mr. A., the best Student Publications adviser college journalism has ever known, has been the most influential person in Kentucky journalism in the past 40 years.

He’s ushered so many award winning journalists through this program, his Rolodex might as well have a Pulitzer Prize.

Don’t forget the coaches and players we’ve covered in this time leading up to Diploma Day.

Like the day Jack Harbaugh yelled at me in Lake Charles, La., after I asked him how his 2-3 football team was going to rebound. A few minutes later he grabbed me for a hug and said, “You know I love you.”

A couple weeks later, he called me one Tuesday morning and thanked me for writing the “Back from the Brink” story that chronicled the football program, and his job being within one vote of extinction.

Then on Dec. 19, 2002, Harbaugh again showed the gamut of his personality while singing fight songs at the press conference podium on the eve of the 2002 national championship game he later won.

What about witnessing the first-ever women’s soccer game in Western history at Morehead in 2001. It was won in dramatic fashion in overtime by Allison Nellis. The game also signified a victory for Title IX backers everywhere since Western finally became compliant.

These are the stories to remember on the cusp of a Western exit.

Thanks to coaches such as Jason and David Neidell who treated me like a veteran sportswriter even though the coverage and stories about their team in fall 2001 were written by a fumbling rookie.

Thanks also to David Elson, Willie Taggert, Keven Lightner, T.J. Weist, Lance Vermeil, Leslie Phelan, Jeff True, Chuck Eison, Laura Hudspeth and Joel Murrie who all gave me the time of day in the snow and rain when some of them worked part time.

Thanks to President Gary Ransdell and Athletics Director Wood Selig, two of the most media-friendly university administrators there are today.

Thanks for all those snapshot memories we’ll pack up as we move our home away from the Hill for the last time. There isn’t a photo album that can hold all these.

Keith Farner covered four sports beats and was a three-time editorial board member in his eight semesters at the Herald.