When I was growing up, my surname was Rothschild. My grandfather used to say that we were the "Brooklyn branch" of the fabulously wealthy European bankers. If there is a family connection, we never found it, but people nonetheless made a lot of assumptions because of the name. I learned that it was useful for making restaurant reservations.

Then, 24 years ago, I met a guy named Eric Utne. "Eric what?" I asked. He repeated a name that sounded like a digestive function. "Rhymes with chutney and means far out in Norwegian," he explained. When we got married, we both idealistically hyphenated our names. For Eric, that phase lasted all of three minutes, but for several years, I doggedly spent most of my waking hours explaining the ungainly hybrid until I decided Rothschild was too pretentious a name to drag around and I'd just as soon share a name with my husband and children. I told Eric that I was gambling that the name Utne would become as valuable some day as Rothschild.

At that time, Eric was starting a magazine. As name after potential name waned and fell from favor, Eric, out of exhaustion and default, named it Utne Reader. Two years later, in 1986, Eric was still squirmy about having slapped his name on the cover, so he invited readers to rename it. More than a thousand people responded, and a clear majority concurred: "Keep it 'Utne.' It's direct, distinctive, easy to remember. In a society where more and more people seek less and less responsibility for their thoughts and actions by hiding behind meaningless, characterless words like EXXON, it's nice to have a publication where the person responsible makes himself known. So keep your crazy name."

Fast-forward 16 years. Eric has left the magazine (though he's still connected-see page 66). I am here, and so is Leif, my stepson. As you can see from our staff photo on page 112, a lot of people have dedicated a lot of their lives to this company. And our alumni association is a phenomenon unto itself. There are many people who are at least as "Utne" as Leif and I are. Over the years, Utne has come to stand for something more than a family's surname. Like