Celebrating 60 years

The Vanguard celebrates its 60th anniversary this month with a special commemorative issue dedicated to the rich history of Portland State’s now daily student newspaper. For 60 years our publication has been the voice of Portland State students, bringing to life the stories and issues important to the PSU community.

The Vanguard has doggedly covered campus protests of at least two major wars, the May 11, 1970 riots that injured 30 students and four police officers, the university’s transition from a college to full university accreditation in 1969, national championship sports teams and the 1965 GE College Bowl.

Over the years, the Vanguard has provided opportunities for hundreds of students to get a taste of what it means to be a journalist and become student leaders. Not surprisingly, former Vanguard editors and writers have gone on to successful careers in the “real world” as journalists, professors, politicians, lawyers, PR people, small business owners-the list of success stories is far too long to print here.

We solicited former Vanguard staff members to submit their memories of working for PSU’s oldest student-run publication. The response was impressive, and so the Vanguard invites you to share in our past stories as we look forward to another 60 years serving–and covering–the Portland State community.

Clarence HeinEditor, 1964-65

In the mid-60s the Vanguard was a weekly, published on Fridays and printed using the hot-type, letterpress method. On Thursday mornings, a few of us would head over to Dunham Printing in Southeast Portland to check on the layout, make last minute corrections and check the page proofs.

Sometimes, to make a quick correction, we would dictate directly to the Linotype operator who would produce a new slug of lead for the corrected line. Standing next to a Linotype in operation was like being inside a dozen pinball machines, all going into bonus points at the same time.

After making up the paper, we’d head over to Hawthorne and Nick’s for a Coney and a cold one, then amble back to campus. No wonder our grades were somewhat less than stellar.

One of the biggest stories we dealt with during that time was the school’s appearance on the nationally televised GE College Bowl program from which our team retired after a record-setting five straight victories. While it may seem improbable now, the show brought national attention to Portland State, even causing Time Magazine to ask, “Portland State, who in tunkit are they?” One of the team members was Michael Smith, for whom Smith Center is named.

During my four terms as editor, I wrote three editorials that caused President Branford Millar (a really bright and wonderful man) some degree of discomfort. The first was a ringing endorsement for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. The second editorial questioned the U.S. involvement in the growing war in Vietnam. Both of these resulted in questions to Dr. Millar from offended members of the public who didn’t think it was the college newspaper’s place to comment on questions of national or political interest. His reaction simply was to ask me to explain my reasoning but never to criticize.

The third article came after the completion of the Southeast corner of Smith Center. The Vanguard moved into new offices on the fourth floor of that addition (we had been in what appeared to be an unused elevator shaft on the third floor). However, when it was built, that section of Smith facing Broadway was a four-story blank brick wall.

My editorial asked why there couldn’t have been a few windows to let in some daylight. We received a strongly worded letter from the architects implying that I was woefully ignorant of the art of fenestration. I agreed that might have been true but that I did understand the need for daylight during the long winters. I was pleased to note that the most recent renovation of Smith included the addition of windows in that previously blank wall. It only took forty years for them to see the light.

In the ’60s, Portland State was an interesting and exciting place to go to school and to work on the paper. I’m sure it still is today and will be 60 years from now. Have a great time at the paper and don’t let ’em push you around.

Dick FeeneyEditor, 1958-59

Bad Jokes

Once, shortly after the Vanguard started publishing twice a week sometime in 1958, the Wednesday edition came out with a totally unplanned page of jokes that were crude, nasty, sexist, dumb and dirty.

The campus went berserk. At least we all felt it did. Faculty members rolled their eyes; students that weren’t offended thought it hilarious. The Vanguard staff not only hadn’t written the stuff, they’d never seen it before.

As it turned out, the shop that printed the Vanguard had lost a page’s worth of copy and had substituted the raunchy joke page from “The Oregon Teamster,” which it also published.

Party Politics

In 1960, at the end of my senior year, a group of current and past Vanguard staffers infuriated some of us by helping to publish the “Oregon Trumpeter,” a scurrilous Republican rag dedicated to Nixon.

For turnabout I joined the Kennedy campaign and began writing a column for the Vanguard called the New Critic.

It wasn’t particularly objective, since I used it to rewrite statements from the Democratic National committee, but at least it was accurate. I was attacked for being a “tool of Jack Kennedy and the Democratic party,” an accusation I was proud to have hurled at me.

Whiskey and Beer

In that day the Vanguard office occupied what is now the entire back hallway on the second floor of Smith Center. It had heat, but the walls were unfinished and the floor was bare cement and the whole thing looked like a construction site. That made it easier to hide the whiskey bottles and beer. Nevertheless, we made do. One editor courted notoriety for turning his office into a “seduction den.”

Makeup Nights

The Friday edition was the big edition of the week, so it sometimes took until way after midnight to finish the page make up, reading hot type upside down and backwards, physically fooling around with cranky headlines that wouldn’t fit, and finally putting the paper to bed.

While waiting for the printers to finish before doing a stone proof, we’d go to a jazz club and drink. Then when we were finished, we’d drink some more, and then maybe not even go home before going to class on Friday.

One editor liked to take his girlfriend on these all-night marathons, until he crashed into a bridge one morning and almost drowned in the Willamette.

Shawn Rossiter1971

I was a freshman at PSU in September 1971, fresh from an all-female Catholic high school where I edited the newspaper and tried to get along with the nuns. I was not prepared for the politically charged, urban cauldron that was the Vanguard in those days.

Before fall term started, I was working for the Dean for Students Orientation Program and met the Vanguard staff. The sports editor, Benny Abram, found out I had writing and editing experience and recruited me–there were never enough women working for the Vanguard in those days.

Anyway, the new recruits were a motley crew of rookies and first year students–fast learners, cynical and idealistic at the same time. We would get our assignments and head out the door into the unknown. I reported to Bill Carey, who sent me to cover an “Alternative Lifestyle Festival.” I had no idea what that was, but what the hell.

I ended up having a great time, eating indescribable food from the Hare Krishna group, talking to a lot of colorful, happy, dancing people. Another assignment, a Women’s Studies Weekend, was more serious and informative-we mingled between seminars on the ERA and other issues that slowly changed our culture.

We would get back to the Vanguard office, where I remember cold, black coffee, donuts and cigarettes were plentiful, and bang out our stories–three pages of newsprint, two pages of carbon paper and, oh yeah, a typewriter. “We were on a mission from God,” as the Blues Brothers would say. Tough lessons, great friends and way too much fun! I have never been to a high school reunion but have always enjoyed, and look forward to, any and all gatherings of the Vanguard staffers.

Cap HedgesWriter, 1959

I was a frustrated 19-year old liberal arts student at the wrong school when I walked into the Vanguard office during spring break of ’59. The office was empty except for one guy who happened to be the ever-ebullient Dick Feeney, then editor-in-chief (now retired TriMet public affairs director and consultant to PSU). Dick immediately marched me four blocks up Montgomery Street to the Montgomery Gardens, a favorite off-campus hangout.

Over several pitchers and a lot of laughs, Dick convinced me that Portland State College was where I belonged, and that working on the Vanguard would awaken my dormant talent as a scribbler. The Vanguard gang was a fun, focused, hard-working bunch, just as I’m sure it is today. Our Vanguard association helped catapult many of us into successful, life-long careers in journalism, PR, advertising and public affairs. Most importantly, our friendships have endured.

Liz Callison, Bob Meyer, Dwight Gruber, Garey Fouts, Janet Christ, Doug Babb, Susan Terry Babb, Bennie Abrams, Bev Walton and Joe Bernt1965-73

During the Vanguard years from 1965-73, the Vietnam War overshadowed everything. The war polarized our generation and gave perpetual cause for rebellion and self-actualization. It indelibly colored the Vanguard and the lives of those of us who worked on it.

The weekly Vanguard’s large fourth-floor news office was our hangout. We used manual typewriters with carbon papers, and developed our black and white photos in a darkroom down the hall. Midnight paste-up sessions were fueled with cheap beer and homemade horsemeat sandwiches.

We had an incredible amount of freedom and we used every bit of it. We satirized bureaucracies and religions, embarrassed college administrators, joined protest marches and dodged the draft.

Reacting to a series of minor provocations–such as naked Allen Ginsberg on the front page, a risque shot of a student actress, and captions switched between a clown’s head and the chancellor of higher education–Portland State College President Branford P. Millar dispatched a flunky to burn the next edition’s press run. Then he shut the paper down. With the aid of faculty contributions, we continued publishing the Independent Vanguard until he eventually cooled off. Somehow Millar’s name ended up on the library.

Through it all, Vanguard advisor Wilma Morrison was our mentor and friend. A seasoned and nationally recognized reporter, she would never have been available to establish the PSC journalism department except for the historic strike at The Oregonian and Oregon Journal in 1959. She also hired working reporters, editors and photographers as part-time instructors.

She never censored what we published, but after each issue came out, she sat down with us and critiqued every column inch. Wilma treated us like the adults we thought we were. She guided our transformation from student journalists to professionals and life-long friends.