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Campus Life

70 Years of Technician Archives

NC State’s evolving history, as seen through the eyes of the student journalists at Technician is now available on-line, thanks to a massive undertaking by the NCSU Libraries Special Collections Archive.

The first 70 years of the paper are digitized and available to read, beginning with these words from the Feb. 1, 1920, inaugural edition:

“Smoothly and with never a jerk or a splash, but with an unerring, quiet movement, a strange ship casts off and the voyage is begun,” said the editorial of Volume 1, No. 1. “She carries with her a cargo of high hopes and aspirations, for the horizon is clear, the sun radiantly rides the heavens, the very atmosphere urges and compels a greater effort in the task undertaken: the future is bright. Rough and stormy seas are expected, but the vessel is a sturdy craft and capable of weathering the worst tempests. Faith is a prized asset, and as long as the beacon of hope sheds its rays upon the ship’s course the goal is in sight and success is assured.”

Its success wasn’t as sure as that indulgent, tortured metaphor was long, perhaps, but such is the beauty—sometimes—of student prose.

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The campus mourned the death of President John F. Kennedy, who had campaigned at Reynolds Coliseum in 1960, and students declared: “He was one of us.”

Technician’s first issue was shortly after the end of World War I and it replaced The Red and White, a student publication of the athletics department that began in 1902 and was suspended at the start of the war. Reading the newly digitized archives is a fascinating way to discover the events, big and small, that make up the university’s timeline, from the sometimes-annual April Fools’ edition, which dates back to 1925, to war coverage, campaign stump speeches, national championships and the minutiae of student life.

You can read the works of budding legends like publishing powerhouse Roy H. Park, namesake of the Park Scholarships and the Roy and Dorothy Park Alumni Center; William C. Friday, lifelong educator and longtime president of the UNC system; and Richard Curtis, a founder and managing editor of graphics and photography for Gannett’s USA Today.

You can see the early work of photojournalist Chris Hondros, a 2003 Pulitzer finalist who was killed in action in Libya on April 20, 2011.

Or you can be amazed at the evolution of advertising and merchandise offered to the campus community, from the cafe and laundry that were in the first issue to the jet ski rental company in the August 1990 issue.

And, if you have ever contributed anything to the paper, you can go back to see just how clever you weren’t during those innocent pre-Internet days, when life was a little more black and white.

Some 4,000 issues are available in an easy-to-read, searchable archive, thanks to the archives staff. They are now part of a wide range of online resources available through the NCSU Libraries’ Historical State, Rare & Unique Digital Collections and Student Leadership websites.

Future plans call for adding all issues after 1990 to the current collection. To learn how to support this initiative or others from the NCSU Libraries, please visit www.lib.ncsu.edu/giving.