Editor’s note: This is another in a series of brief profiles of the people who bring you the Morning Sun each day.
Some people just have a creative spirit. Fortunately, for the Morning Sun, Sara Hannigan brought hers to the newspaper business.
Sara, the Morning Sun’s director of design, spends her days putting words, images and ideas into attractive packages that include advertisements, special section covers and news pages.
“I love getting to be creative with all my projects,” Sara said. “Creating different ads, covers, and pages is incredibly rewarding.”
Sara was born in Parsons and grew up in Cherokee. At Southeast High School she played clarinet in the band and threw discus and shot put on the track team.
It took Sara a few years to find her way to the newspaper business. She spent some time working in the kitchen at Via Christi, did a three-year stint as a lunch lady in the Shawnee Mission school district, and even worked in the count room at Kansas Crossing Casino.
And then, with a newly minted associates degree in graphic design technology from Labette Community College in hand, Sara started looking for a career in design.
Sara was just what the Morning Sun was looking for.
“I started out working in layout,” Sara recalled. “I loved layout because it was like playing an 8-page game of Tetris. I loved the challenge of trying to figure out how I could lay out the stories, pictures, and ads in a different and more creative way every day.”
Today, most of Sara’s time is devoted to designing ads and cover art for special sections and projects.
“Getting to see something you’ve put tons of time and effort into being printed is a really exciting feeling,” Sara said.
Sara, a lover of art, quirky plants, clowns and dogs, brings not only her design talent to the Morning Sun, but a cheerful, positive attitude. Recently, Sara and her husband of seven years, Bryce, along with beloved dachshunds Crowley and Scrappy, moved into a historic home in Fort Scott.
She makes the daily trip to Pittsburg for a job she said she finds very rewarding.
“No day at the Morning Sun is ever the same,” Sara said. “There’s always something for me to look forward to creating!”
