Empowered magazine has been in the works for a year now and when I first started, I was asked a simple question: “Who is this magazine for?” 

The answer stumped me for awhile, but now it is clear.

This magazine is for the students of Emporia State campus and for the town of Emporia. This is The Bulletin’s love letter to Emporia for their generous support as we strive to, above all else, tell stories factually and accurately. 

We are students, but we are also journalists and we believe that everyone has a story to tell. Empowered is the place that we tell these stories.

We hope you find this magazine to be as fulfilling to read as it was to make. Whether you are inspired by Josie’s words and begin to believe in yourself and learn to be diligent, or you listen to Lucas’s story as they battle with their mental health, or Gabriel’s story about his economic hardship and worrying about his family in Puerto Rico after the hurricane, or any of the other many stories in this magazine, I hope you find something that you can relate to and someone to believe in.

We created this magazine in the hopes that if even one person picked up this magazine, read a single story and was moved, we would have completed our jobs.

These faces and these voices define us, speak to us and empower us.

I hope they empower you too.