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| Michael Swickard on NMSU Student Radio |
© 2015 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
"The
college that does not feel the need of a medium for the publication of its
various doings and saying must be a very quiet sort of place with students who
never play pranks and teachers who cannot appreciate a "break" when
it is made." In the first New Mexico State University yearbook, 1908
A student newspaper is a vibrant
alive burr under the saddle of the administration and focus of many conflicting
views. It breathes and snorts and fires the imagination. Or, it did in the
past.
Some of us who are former staffers
of the media at NMSU are saddened by this action. I was on my high school
newspaper and yearbook in Alamogordo as a photographer and when I came to NMSU
in the fall of 1968 I continued student photo journalism.
My father, a photography instructor
for the Air Force taught me well all phases of photography. My first year at
NMSU I worked with the Round-Up,
became the Head Photographer of the yearbook, worked on the student radio
station and got in on the ground floor of the television efforts.
I was even elected to the NMSU
Student Senate from the College of Arts and Sciences to protect the budgets of
the three media: the newspaper, yearbook and student radio station. Myself and
Brad Cates were the two real conservatives in the Senate. Brad was later elected
Student Body President.
In October of 1969 Harvey Jacobs, Journalism
and Mass Communications Department Head called me to his office. He almost
single-handedly built the NMSU media program and wanted me to do him a favor.
Justin Weddell, Class of 1908 was the
driving force in starting both the student newspaper and the yearbook. He was getting
a special honor for Homecoming and would be arriving from Chicago. Someone
needed to show him how the campus had changed. As someone who worked with the
student newspaper and yearbook, I was given the opportunity to spend the day
with Weddell.
As luck would have it, I respected
Harvey Jacobs and it was the very first thing he had ever asked me to do so I
was in for the day. Weddell was eighty-two and still in fairly good health. We
walked around with him saying, "Our student dorm, The Klondike was over
there until one night when it burnt down."
His Senior Thesis was The Art of the Southwestern Indian which
he mentioned. I asked if he had gone to see the pictographs at Three Rivers. He
had several times. I smiled and mentioned that my grandmother had taught school
in that one-room school in 1908. He did not remember her directly but
remembered the school.
We had a pleasant day and then it
was time for him to join other graduates for the Homecoming festivities. He
held my hand a few moments and said, "Don't let them kill what the class
of 1908 started." I promised to fight for the media. Already, even in 1969,
student newspapers and yearbooks were thought to be out of date.
The Round-Up essentially quitting the news business would not have surprised
Justin Weddell since students no longer read newspapers. They skim
electronically and stories over fifty words are in danger of being ignored.
I do not mourn for the Round-Up, I mourn for the learning
opportunity that the editors and news producers had in putting out the paper.
It came out twice a week in my era and once a week currently. That required writers
to be on deadline and editors to manage their time effectively.
Publishing once a month is like not
at all. The NMSU students have gotten quiet as they are surrounded by their
electronic world. I am not as old as Justin Weddell was when I spent a day with
him. Still, it was forty-six years ago and I'm no Spring Chicken. We are and
were Round-Up dinosaurs remembering a
better time.
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