To our devoted readers and the Xavier Community,

This month, The Kestrel, Xavier’s longstanding outlet for news and sports, celebrated sixty years in publication.  First published in October 1965, The Kestrel succeeded other publications known as “X-citing News” and “X-tra” which, in the school’s earliest years, offered trivia about the Brothers teaching at Xavier, including Br. Robert Sullivan, C.F.X., the school’s founder, along with world news stories, including a page in memory of the nation’s first Catholic president, the young John F. Kennedy.  After two years of experimentation in journalism, the name finally decided on was “The Kestrel,” a bird in the falcon family, which the paper’s earliest publications described as “a bird of character.”

The Kestrel is perhaps one of the longest-standing traditions at Xavier and has reported on such famous events as “Houli Day,” Xavier Leadership Institute, and the annual Intramural Basketball Championship from their beginnings.  The Kestrel has sat down with hundreds of faculty members and students over the last six decades, including a vast majority of the Brothers who served at Xavier.  After decades in print, the Kestrel has spent the last twelve years as an online news source that is consistently updated with campus and world news articles, student editorials, and with weekly memes and polls, all of which can be accessed by the whole Xavier community at any time of the day.  In the last three years, the Kestrel has expanded its outreach with Super Bowl and March Madness Contests, along with new email newsletters and a wide social media presence.  Through its school-wide activities, The Kestrel has also been responsible for raising upwards of four-thousand dollars for Catholic charities in the last three years.  It is safe to say that The Kestrel continues to thrive in our community.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank all of those members of the Xavier community who have been devoted readers of The Kestrel in the past sixty years.  It truly means a lot to both me and all of our staff, that you take the time to enjoy the content we produce each week at Xavier.  I would also like to thank all those Xavier alumni and current Xavier students who have served as reporters and editors of The Kestrel.  Know that your legacy will continue to live on in the incredible works that The Kestrel produces.  Lastly, I would like to thank all those faculty and staff members who, in the last sixty years, have helped to make The Kestrel what it has been for generations of the Xavier community.  Know that your devotion to students and their dreams in journalism are never forgotten.

As a senior this year, it has been an honor and privilege to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of The Kestrel for the past three years.  I look forward to what lies ahead in the next few months, and I know that there will be so much talent displayed in our school’s paper in the years to come.

Thank you all, and God Bless.

Sean O’Sullivan ’26
Editor-in-Chief