My wife Lynne (then Lynne Traeger) and I were on The Spectrum staff from 1969 through 1973. I was copy editor, managing editor and then production manager. Lynne was on staff and was also an editor. Those were exciting years, coinciding with the campus sit-ins at Hayes Hall, the police occupation in February 1970, and the protests over the Kent State killings. I can still remember the acrid smell of teargas in Norton Hall after the police rushed the building. There were many changes over the years as the campus came to grips with the activism of its students. We graduated as the Watergate scandal was breaking with Woodward and Bernstein's reports making journalism history.
The Spectrum staff was an incredibly talented group of reporters, photographers and cartoonists, many of whom are now household names in the world of journalism and media. They included Howard Kurtz, Tom Toles, JoAnn Armao, and Eric Schoenfeld, among others.
The technology at our disposal was state-of-the-art for the time. We were able to set our stories on magnetic tape and edit them with a second correction tape. The tapes were then placed in separate readers and the final story typed on an IBM Selectric Typewriter with different font balls to vary the type and which could justify the copy. The printed copy was then literally pasted onto sheets and sent to the printers. This was heady stuff in an era when the computer classes used time-share on the mainframe with punch cards for programming. We never foresaw the technology revolution which would make this all obsolete.
Being on the staff enabled us to feel more connected to the campus and afforded us insights into the workings of the university not available to many other students. The pressure of working under deadlines helped us learn to prioritize our responsibilities and focus our efforts on the tasks at hand. We did not continue in journalism. I am currently a physician with the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division and Lynne is the Research Administrator for the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. However, the journalism gene continues in the family, as our daughter Rachel is a reporter/producer for KWMU, the National Public Radio affiliate in St. Louis.
Email: alumni@ubspectrum.com
