Newsmakers 2015: Rachel Crader

Being an editor is something Rachel Crader never thought she wanted to do. From grade school on, she says she was determined: She was going to be a reporter.

A Leopold, Missouri, native, Crader graduated from the University of Missouri and wound up as content adviser for students at the Arrow, the student-run newspaper at Southeast Missouri State University, in tandem with her job as as editor of semoball.com and a sports reporter at the Southeast Missourian.

In four years, Crader has guided the student newspaper to be named "Best Overall Newspaper" in a division one competition at a state-wide conference. She also became sports editor at the Southeast Missourian in 2013.

"You can't help but be proud of that, or in awe of it," Crader says of her work at the Arrow. "Especially when you consider where we came from, a publication struggling for respect and really just struggling to survive."

Her growth at the university mirrors the accomplishments semoball.com has undergone in the past two years.

The Semoball Awards recently celebrated its second successful year, with approximately 1,000 local athletes, family members and fans coming together to celebrate their achievements.

"It was more than two years where we had this idea, and it wasn't until Lucas (Presson) came along to mobilize the business side of things that it took off," Crader says. "It was probably 18 months in the making."

After the first year, Crader recalls, "It was wonderful to see everyone as excited as we were, and to see this idea in our minds come to life."

She says the sports department is already planning ways to make next year's event even better.

"The most exciting thing for me, between semoball, the Arrow, everything I am touching right now -- everybody I work with -- is trying so hard to be better, or to try something new and give back to our readers, making us more accessible. And while that finished product is great, it pales in comparison to the people I get to work with on a daily basis," Crader says.