Editor's note

Image caption: Dale Keiger
Editor

This is my 120th issue of Johns Hopkins Magazine. And, I am afraid, my last.

I'm not in any sort of mortal peril, I'm just retiring from the university after 26 years as a member of the magazine staff. I have been the editor for the last four years, a period I think of as the capstone of my career. What a great ride.

My first stories were about a violin competition and a theory of international relations. My last story is about dust on Mars. I have written about opera, how to conduct an orchestra, women in Ireland, painting, pain, a polymath film editor obsessed with planetary orbits, and what it is like to live in America on $2 a day. I've learned about epidemiology, astrophysics, wave mechanics, happiness economics, book preservation, the chemistry of silicon, the Civil War, ethnic cuisines, underwater archaeology, how to make a violin, how to play guitar, and how a serial killer's mind works.

The job "required" me to ride roller coasters, hit the road with the Peabody Orchestra, travel to Italy, observe a Pluto flyby from mission control, eat a Thanksgiving dinner in August, and hang out with little boys learning ballet. I covered women's basketball, men's lacrosse, football, fencing, and swimming, and in one six-day stretch a few years ago I saw eight varsity teams in action. Most of them won.

Here's the thing: It was all fun. I have worked with extraordinary people, made lifelong friends, learned a hell of a lot, and done the work I love for a quarter century. Now I'm moving on to new and exciting projects—once I get some sleep.

So long. It's been swell.

Dale Keiger
Editor