TAMIU’s student newspaper is under new leadership. Dr. Daniel De la Miyar began his role as the organization’s coordinator at the beginning of this Spring 2016 school semester. Along with directing The Bridge’s participation to the university, De la Miyar hopes to build a diverse staff of creative student journalists and contributors who will provide the campus and city of Laredo with an enriched form of news content.
Ibrahim Mohamed Kero joined The Bridge with intentions of being a political correspondent. Instead he has taken on the demanding responsibility of being an editor. Kero, as he is called among his friends, is currently a petty officer in the Navy Reserve, which he’s been a part of since he was 18, and has given him the chance to serve the U.S. country by deploying to the Middle East in 2014 as one of the last Operation Enduring Freedom veterans. Kero claims he’s always been political savvy and supportive to all who wish to be involved in the political process.
As an editor, Kero hopes to legitimize The Bridge as a Laredo newspaper and news source. He is pushing the newspapers staff to expand and modernize The Bridge through new avenues on the web, social media, and video. His goal as editor is to see The Bridge as “the” main source of relevant student information, and a melting pot of different ideas and contributions. Though Kero is a Political Science and Communications double major and passionate about American government, he nor the rest of the staff want The Bridge to be exclusively political. The paper enjoys and encourages outside contributors to send in their work because in the end, The Bridge is TAMIU’s collective story.
Rebekah Maria Rodriguez is also an editor for The Bridge newspaper. She is a communication major who has six and a half years of experience with student journalism, which began at the Vidal M. Treviño Magnet School’s newspaper. She is honored that De la Miyar has trusted her with a demanding position for the paper. Like De la Miyar and Kero, Rebekah hopes to bring diversity to The Bridge because she believes it’s important for the paper’s staff to reflect the different backgrounds and experiences of TAMIU’s population. Her passion for writing is evident in many aspects. She attributes her confident demeanor and connections to great people to her writing experience. She’s even delved into the story-telling world of slam poetry that has further increased her writing skills in a unique way.
Kero and Rebekah will be graduating with their bachelor’s degree from TAMIU within the next year, and both have plans to pursue a graduate degree depending on upcoming career opportunities. Similarly, journalism is a profession they are both hoping to continue. Both editors have already contributed greatly to the change The “New” Bridge has taken. They promote all students, faculty, staff, and citizens of Laredo to pick up a monthly copy of the paper to inform themselves over local events and news. Copies of The Bridge have been placed around several local restaurants and businesses in the city of Laredo thanks to the tremendous help of The Bridge’s current staff, in fact. Certainly, Kero, Rebekah, and Dr. De la Miyar, along with the supporting writers, reporters, and photographers of the paper, are innovating a new way to reach out to citizens. There are numerous discoveries at TAMIU that must be written and read about.