For more than a century, the student’s voice: The Volante Turns 125

By Jarett C. Bies

It was in the 1880s when a group of University of Chicago students followed USD’s fourth president, Edward Olson to the dusty prairie of Vermillion. The group carried with them an idea for a student publication, but it’s safe to say that none of the “Chicago Boys” – a nickname they relished – realized they were starting an institution that would continue for more than 125 years.

The cover of the first issue of The Volante, published in 1887.

Those young men, along with students from South Dakota, began to publish The Volante – a French verb meaning “flying”—that also was the moniker of a literary publication at the University of Chicago. The “Boys” liked the name enough to give it a new life at the young USD they now called home. That simple starting point for The Volante belies the complex and strong message the newspaper became, and continues to be, in 2012. It continues to hold a strength no other student-run entity at the university has matched. It has served as the student’s voice, a springboard for writers, photographers, designers and editors, and it continues to lead as the flagship student publication at the University. As we celebrate the university’s 150th anniversary of founding in 2012, we also celebrate The Volante, its alumni and the work these students compiled while working at USD.

When the first issue of The Volante was published in 1887, it looked nothing like

Members of the Volante's first editorial in the 1880s.

the student newspaper that most alumni remember from their days at USD. It was presented, as the publications of the time, as a literary publication, with flowing essays, few images and a considerable amount of depth into grand issues that went beyond the borders of a campus that consisted of three buildings. As both the newspaper and campus grew, those who worked at The Volante realized its import. During one of the most monumental events of the early USD – the fire of Old Main in 1893 –The Volante played a crucial role informing students of the event and keeping them alert to the fact classes would continue on in the face of a massive setback.

The Volante and its staff continued to refine their work in the early years of USD, adding and removing ideas and elements as they went. One of the key contributions that did not change with time was how The Volante served as testing ground for young journalists. That aspect led Gerda (McClintic) Mason ’36 to seek a job there when she began study at USD in 1932.

“I had worked as a proofreader at the Watertown Public Opinion, and I was majoring in journalism, so I wanted a spot with The Volante,” Mason said. “There was competition for jobs on campus in general, because of the Depression, and I was

Gerda (McClintic) Mason works on a story in the 1930s.

so glad to get one. We worked hard, but it was fun. As a staff, we really enjoyed one another’s company.” Mason also worked as an editor on USD’s yearbook, The Coyote, and went on to work as a journalist at a newspaper in Hartington, Neb.

“As a journalist, your nose gets to twitching when you sense news, and while I did not make my career in the news business, those instincts I learned at The Volante served me well in my life, traveling around the world,” she said. “It got me started on a lifetime of writing, and the skill of being able to get along with about anyone, that was one thing I certainly learned as a journalist.”

Alumna Marilyn Hagerty ’48 worked at The Volante during an era when USD went from bust to boom in terms of enrollment. She began as World War II was nearing its end and graduated when the GIs from that war were filling campus classrooms and residence halls. Hagerty’s career in journalism began before her time at The Volante, and it continues to this day: she wrote for several Midwestern newspapers, most notably (and longest) the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota. At USD, when the chance arose, she took it. “Women during World War II had the chance to take over because

Marilyn Hagerty '48

the only men on campus were either 4F (medically exempt from service) or studying medicine,” she said. “So we took that chance, and we led the paper as best we could, seeking out and recruiting writers from across campus.”

After the war ended, Hagerty sought to recruit talented writers for the paper. One was a young man from Eureka, S.D. Al Neuharth ’50, was certain radio was “where it was at” until Hagerty spoke with him. “You don’t want to go into radio, Al, I remember saying that to him,” she said. “I explained to him the quality of people we had at the paper, and it seemed to work.” Neuharth’s lessons with Hagerty and other editors and writers led to his industry-impacting career in journalism, one that truly proves the way The Volante could be a starting point for success.

After graduating, the Eureka, S.D. native created a weekly sports paper in South Dakota, but after it failed he worked at the Miami Herald, climbing the ladder from reporter to editor over a decade. He joined the Gannett Corporation, and as one of its key leaders, expanded its revenues by an astounding 1,450 percent. He founded The USA Today in 1982, which continues to stand as the most widely read newspaper in the U.S., and he retired in 1989.

Neuharth has never been shy about acknowledging the roles of both USD and The Volante in the noteworthy success that is his career. To show his appreciation, he began a scholarship program to recruit high-school journalists to USD. Penny Slezak served as the first Neuharth Fund coordinator and Volante adviser when the program began in 1988. “The Neuharth Excellence in Journalism program involved in The Volante tools with which they could, and ultimately would, make the newspaper one of the best weekly college newspapers in the country,” Slezak said. “These tools, established by the Freedom Forum and implemented by the Neuharth Advisory Board, included a visiting journalist program that brought in journalists from around the country to work with The Volante staff; four-year scholarships for incoming freshmen, and an annual Neuharth Excellence in Journalism award that honored nationally known journalists.”

Beyond the scholarship program and Freedom Forum, Neuharth also help support the development of the Al Neuharth Media Center at USD. During his address at its dedication in 2003, he noted the role USD holds in his success. “Since leaving home a half century ago, I’ve worked and/or traveled in all 50 states — most of them many times — and crisscrossed six continents,” he said. “But my years growing up in Eureka and Alpena, USD summer ‘vacations’ working on newspapers in Aberdeen and Mitchell and Rapid City, and especially the four years here on this campus, set the stage for my future ventures and adventures.”

Hagerty said she was privy to Neuharth’s benevolent spirit, long before the scholarship and Freedom Forum took shape. “All of us who studied under E.J. Trotzig knew his kindness, and skill, and saw them as true gifts, and Al was among those who recognized what he gained from the man we all called ‘Trotter’,” she said. “I remember years later, he gathered us all together, to honor Trotter, and that it was a private event, only set aside for all of those who learned from this likeable, low-key teacher.”

In the 1960s, a young news editor for The Volante said he recognized the role the newspaper played on a campus where little local radio or TV made its way to the students. “We were a focal point for news, especially for students,” said Craig Lawrence ’69, who worked as news editor at The Volante for several years during his time at USD. “It was a tumultuous time and issues like the Vietnam War and protests of that war were a huge part of our experience. A campus is always an intellectually active place to be.”

Lawrence’s career began in print and broadcast journalism, and he then joined Paul Schiller ’70 to found Lawrence & Schiller, a Sioux Falls, S.D. based advertising and market-research business. He said his years at The Volante were the

Craig Lawrence '69

greatest part of his USD career. “The Volante was a marvelous experience where we took the theoretical lessons of the classroom and brought them to life in real-time,” he said. “It super-charged me and it’s where I learned the awesome responsibility of standing behind what I wrote. If you want to be a writer, then write. And there’s no better way to learn to write than at a student paper. Covering a story and being able to relay what you saw to others, to make them feel as if they were witness, there’s no other lesson that is more directly applicable than that one in all of the college experience.” Lawrence and his comrades at The Volante worked their typewriters and notebooks in the South Dakota Union, long before computer labs and networks could combine the work of writers and editors in a uniform fashion. Later, the student newspaper was housed at the Coyote Student Center and began to incorporate technology in the industry.

As technology changed, so too did the newspaper, but Karen (Jones) Palm ’84, said that she remembered building The Volante and how its role as the student’s voice connected to its rich history. “For me, and for all of us, we were aware of the history we had in The Volante, and how it connected back to the earliest days of the university,” she said. “During the 1980s, when I was editor in chief, we were still using typewriters. We did all the typesetting and layout at the offices of the Vermillion Plain Talk onsite. Our long Monday nights were spent there, laying out the week’s issue.”

The paper under Palm faced challenges as well. Budget issues across campus in the 1980s, along with the editorial voice, had angered some representatives in the USD student government, and the paper was among the programs and ideas considered for cuts. “When I took over as EIC, it was during a tough time and we worked diligently to improve the image of the paper, which had always been independent, but had fallen down some,” she said. “We were extremely relieved when the decision was made to keep The Volante open, and to keep it going. It was near that time we began reaching out to Al (Neuharth) and of course when he started his program, it really allowed the paper to shine.”

Allen Newman ’93 said that graphic design skills he learned at his tenure at The Volante are still among the things he does as office manager at Mac Pros in Sioux Falls, S.D. Newman felt a personal connection with the paper’s long history when he began work there in the late 1980s. “I was curious enough about The Volante’s history to want to see copies of the first issues,” he said. “I was a big proponent of updating the paper visually and conceptually, but change should acknowledge the past. We need to be reminded that there were others before us. When I started, the top of the page said ‘Student Publications Board Newspaper’ and I thought it should say ‘The Students' Voice Since 1887.’ That seems to have stuck as a viable identity and mission statement.”

Newman guided a complete overhaul of the paper’s design before his graduation and said his time at The Volante was one that straddled an emerging change, since it was during the last years before the Internet became relevant. “I think we could sense that the way people wanted information had changed and would change. Virtually no one got their news from a computer, but we experienced moving the process of creating the newspaper from the pasteboard to the computer. We were seeing our work in a new way on computer screens even though our readers only saw the final product as ink on paper.”

It was during the 1990s that The Volante, with its full-ride scholarship students leading the way that the paper began to

Two respected journalists, two Volante alumane: Mary Jo Hotzler '99, left, editor at the Grand Forks Herald, collaborates with longtime columnist Marilyn Hagerty '48, at the offices of the paper.

garner national attention. Mary Jo Hotzler ’99 was a Neuharth scholar, the second from Watertown, following in the path of Emily Ford ’92 to the offices of The Volante in the Coyote Student Center. Now editor of the Grand Forks Herald, Hotzler said the expectations of excellence at The Volante made a tremendous difference in her career. “Penny Russell-Roberts (now Slezak) was a tough cookie, and I remember how she pushed all of us, made us understand the reality of our role on campus,” Hotzler said. “Yes, we were a student publication, but we were held to professional standards. The outside world was watching what we did, she taught me, and we all took it to heart.”

Hotzler was leading the paper when the first website for The Volante was crafted, and she said the connections she made there still remain among her close friends and peers in the industry. “Honestly, it’s interesting now, because I’m the one hiring interns, and I say this honestly, from my experiences in Fargo (she worked for several years as an editor at the Fargo Forum) and now at the Herald, Volante interns are leaps and bounds better prepared for work in a professional newsroom,” she said. “I am so thankful, because I use the lessons I learned at USD, and more specifically at The Volante, each and every day.”

Those high standards pay dividends. The Volante was the winner of the National Pacemaker Award, the college journalism equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize, for the first time in 1993. Staffers of the paper have gone on to claim that esteemed prize six more times, including back-to-back wins in 2011-12 and a nomination for the award in 2012-13. The intense focus on excellence has made The Volante a success, not only among students who read it, but on a larger stage.

Nick Kotzea ’04, ’08 was, like Hotzler, a Neuharth scholar, and was part of The Volante team when it moved its headquarters from the Coyote Student Center to the newly renovated Al Nueharth Media Center, formerly the New Armory. Kotzea attended the USD School of Law after completing his degree and his time at the newspaper, and said the experiences at The Volante shaped a number of young professionals like him.

“The Volante is a unique part of USD, in that it serves as a learning laboratory for prospective journalists,” he said. “Many graduates who worked there are now established parts of the media, and many others took their experiences – like I did – and went on to professional degrees in law or medicine or other fields.”

Kotzea said the role played by Jack Marsh, a Freedom Forum leader during Kotzea’s tenure with The Volante, served as an adviser to The Volante staff and a mentor to many who contributed to the paper’s daily work. “He really guided us, and that sort of insight was crucial to our success,” Kotzea said. “It can be dangerous, arming 20-year-olds with newspaper ink, but Jack made sure, for the most part, that we took that freedom and went in the right directions.”

As The Volante looks back at 125 years, it’s safe to say the myriad changes of the media industry also are part of its lineage, and that its central role as the student’s voice will continue to shape the way it conducts business and brings freshman reporters up through the ranks to editors. “Today, students have so many sources for information, but The Volante’s watchdog role for the students of USD remains a key to why it survives, and thrives, in this age of information,” said Hotzler, reflecting on The Volante’s future. “At the same time, all who work or who have worked there come to realize they are at the controls of something larger than their stories, it’s a special tradition, and it is an important part of The Volante.” Watch a KELO News video about The Volante turning 125.