SHINE PROFILES

SHINE: LUKE YANG ’22

To be in the moment. To remember the moment.

CAMERA IN HAND, HE DOCUMENTS TODAY’S CAMPUS AND PEOPLE.

He was inspired by his dad in the early 2000s, “with that big camcorder over his shoulder,” Yang says. “It made me want to use a camera.” His own cameras followed, then smartphones, then his iPhone. He learned to make the shot count with as little editing as possible.

At Gustavus, he started photographing student events. “I joined Hmong American Cultural Outreach on campus and became PR chair and historian,” he says. That led to gigs with other student organizations—photos for the International Culture Club Festival, Lunar New Year, Hmong New Year. He became a go-to photographer for student orgs focused on culture. “I’m accessible, especially to students of color. When you have photos of you being happy and candid with a sense of ease in your own cultural expression, it’s important.” This academic year, he joined The Gustavian Weekly as a photographer. It’s great, he says, but because of COVID, “All of the photographers have never been in one place at the same time. I finally met one of the other photographers [in March] at Drag Queen bingo.” A communication studies major and English minor who also loves dance, “the through-thread for me is communication. Photography, writing, dancing—they all have a heart in communication,” he says. Photography in particular, he has learned, “comes down to having an eye. I learn to walk around campus and literally stop and think, ‘that’s a great shot of the Chapel.’ It comes down to what you can do in the moment, what you can frame up. It doesn’t even feel like working. It’s just me practicing my skills and looking at campus in a new way.” He comes from a long line of Gusties: his older brother, Nick Yang ’12, his uncles John Lee ’08 and Jerry Vang ’04, his auntie Maisee Ly ’03, two sisters-in-law, and a cousin, Justin Ly, a fellow Class of 2022 member. So far, Yang’s the only photographer. “I’m walking a path and pushing a boundary. It’s really poetic. And what’s been amazing is that I take photos of this place that a lot of us call home.”

Despite the pandemic, Yang photographed some significant historic events: the Pride Parade on campus this fall, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg candlelight vigil in Saint Peter, and the first-ever Lyrical Cafe in the new Center for Inclusive Excellence. Plus, that “Dating During COVID” assignment. (Hopefully that will soon be history, too.)

COMMUNITY

SHINE: CORINNE STREMMEL ’21

Four years with the Fourth Estate

SHE STEPPED ONTO CAMPUS AND STRAIGHT INTO THE WEEKLY’S PAGES.

It wasn’t Page One from day one but darn close. Stremmel was a Weekly features editor her first and second years at Gustavus. Then, she was copy editor. She pursued the editor-in-chief position because she likes the gratification of leading others. “All these people coming into The Weekly who care about writing and want their voices heard— it’s my role to let their voices be heard.”

Her tenure as EIC has been dominated by that desire for diversity in coverage. “Having honest interviews and being able to reach every part of campus is something I really tried to do this year,” she says. Another goal, “I want students to be able to say what they think without needing to put on a good face.” It’s a tough imperative when you know there will be critics. Still, “I want our opinion writers to feel free to be critical but also instructive.”

Also tough: covering COVID, during COVID. “Keeping The Weekly Gustavus-centric, representing what the campus is right now. I’m hyper aware of the our role for historical purposes but also for students here right now.” A paper gets made every week, “but I miss the chaos of 10 to 15 people in the office screaming at each other over what needs to be done,” she says. “The Weekly is a newspaper but it’s also been a social organization.” Before COVID, “On layout nights we’d order pizza from Godfather’s and all work together on the paper. There was a lot of bonding.” Now, she’ll finish her Weekly career socially distanced from two other editors in The Weekly office in the basement of Uhler.

What does life after The Weekly hold? Writing, editing, managing people, and managing processes, she hopes. She’ll graduate with English and communication studies majors, plus editing internships at a book publisher and two magazines (including this one), and work experience in project management and tutoring.

And those incredible four years at The Weekly. “When I think of my Gustavus experience, I think of it being with The Weekly,” she says. “I met such a wide array of excellent and driven people. I’ll miss hearing about them and how things on campus are going while working on something fun that I care about.” Under the headline “What This Editor Won’t Miss,” look for this strongly worded opinion: “I’ll never eat another piece of Godfather’s pizza again.”

SERVICE

For this issue, Stremmel spent the month of January immersed in The Gustavian Weekly archives. “What I took away from this expedition is that life goes on during tragedy,” she says. “COVID-19 has made me hyper-aware of the fact that I’m living through history.” Find out what The Weekly stacks taught her about 99 other years of Gustavus student history on page 13.

A Century of Covering Campus Life

Since September 18, 1920, The Gustavian Weekly has documented our Gustie community and our global one. Here’s a decade-by-decade look at the big news and the big changes covering that news.

By Stephanie Wilbur Ash, Sarah Asp Olson, Emma Myhre ’19, Corinne Stremmel ’21, and Sydney Stumme-Berg ’22

By the end of the 1920 academic year, the student staff of College Breezes, a monthly campus publication, decided the campus needed a newspaper “that could get out football schedules before the season records were printed.”

By September, the first issue of The Gustavian Weekly had rolled off the presses.

Since then, The Weekly has covered bible camp attendance and rock band breakups, international policy issues and local liquor laws, the arrivals of new first-years and the disappearance of the cigarette machines, and more Shakespeare productions than thou can shake-est a stick at. And, of course, reams of athletics schedules, scores, and recaps. The publication has weathered changes in culture—Does content need administrative approval? Can

The Weekly staff from 1920–1921, in Old Main, and the staff from 2019–2020, in the basement of Uhler. (The pandemic had this year’s staff working remotely; they did not gather for a photo.)

we print this photo of a bong?— and changes in production. Goodbye, moveable type. Hello, desktop publishing, digital photography, and gustavianweekly.com.

Read the very first issue of The Gustavian Weekly on page 22. Bring your monocle!

Mechanical failures and a lack of personnel have oft been bemoaned in The Weekly’s pages. For a few issues in the early 1970s the paper was called Junction, then n.o.t.a. It had a neardeath experience in the late 70s, resuscitated by its adviser, John Rezmerski, and a frantic staff of five.

But as Carole Arwidson ’84 wrote in a history published in 1982, “The Weekly is still writing about the quality of the cafeteria food, the soaring costs of education, the excellence of the Gustavus football team, and the prevailing student apathy.”

At the time, The Weekly was also still typesetting headlines manually and boxing photos with hairline tape.

Some things change. Some things remain the same.

When past mastheads of The Gustavian Weekly mention “since 1891” they’re counting back to the first student-run publications, Heimdall, Gustaviana, Gustavus Adolphus Journal/Gustaf Adolfs Journalen, and College Breezes.

1920s

Hello from Old Main

The first-ever editor-in-chief of the Gustavian Weekly was Hobart Johnson ’21.

Granddaughter Lynn Lutz McGinty ’84 heard about the legend of The Weekly’s origins growing up. “They were set up in Old Main and they only had two windows,” she says. Those accommodations are not far off from what The Weekly staff works in now in the basement of Uhler Hall.

Johnson started college in Kansas, but his uncle, O.J. Johnson (Gustavus president at the time) encouraged him to transfer to Gustavus. His senior year, he led the staff that launched The Gustavian Weekly in 1920–1921.

Reading the early issues of The Weekly is an exercise in time management and squinting, with lots of words in very small print. The paper covered changes in academics, college administration, and campus buildings, issues that affected student life, similar to what is covered now.

But in reflecting the origins of Gustavus, there was extra focus on religious life, music performances, and oratory competitions.

After that first year of The Weekly, Johnson went to medical school, then on to missionary work in Tanzania with his wife, fellow graduate Ruth G.E. Johnson ’20. Then the couple came back to Minnesota and set up an ophthalmology practice in North Mankato. He became the first chairperson of the Gustavus Fund. She, a class agent. Two of their children are Gusties, including McGinty’s mother, Dorothy Johnson Lutz ’51, and uncle Wendell Johnson ’53. The legacy continues today with many more Gustie grads (and current students) 100 years later.

Today, Hobart Johnson’s daughter Dorothy lives just a few miles from where the college newspaper her father helped start maintains its weekly run.

1939 editors read and write The Weekly. A headline here: “Active Year Planned for Orators.”

The first year and the current year of The Weekly both covered global pandemics.

A Weekly photo of tennis Gusties with their racquets and belts.

1930s

Newsflash! A Woman Editor-In-Chief

In 1929, The Weekly moved from Old Main to the basement of Uhler, then a men’s dormitory. (It’s been all over between Uhler stints, including two different basement locations in Norelius/Co-Ed.)

In 1934, a censorship committee was established— three faculty members read all editorial and feature copy prior to printing. Why this was required is unclear— coverage at the time consisted of such seemingly innocuous topics as choir tours, faculty additions, campus enrollment, new buildings, sports, and a plethora of Bible study opportunities, though the “Old Mane” jokes column could get racy.

On January 29, 1935, it was announced that Lillias Davis ’35 would be the new editor-in-chief. “Under her leadership, effort is being put forth to make the Gustavian Weekly as successful a production as it has been in the past,” the announcement tactfully read. By now, I have traveled through all 100 years of The Weekly, and despite all my discoveries, I am convinced that not much has changed since 1920. While the campus looks a bit different and thousands of students have cycled through, The Weekly has remained a source of expression true to the student experience.

Of course there are still some things that shock me, things I know I would never get away with as the current editor-in-chief. I’m amazed by the candor debating the benefits of LSD and the explicit mention of alcohol on campus in the 1960s and 70s, and I’m baffled by the advertisements for engagement rings and wedding dresses that littered The Weekly’s pages all the way up to 1990.

Still, at its core, The Weekly issues of the past are filled with the same kinds of articles we publish today. Caf controversies, concerns about the environment, and more (or less) helpful advice from seniors to first-years. The college experience remains the same as 18- to 22-year-olds try to figure out who they are over the course of four years.

What I truly took away from this expedition through time is that life goes on. Despite great social changes in history, reflected in the news media across the country and the world, there is still homework due tomorrow and a Caf controversy and that’s what Gustavus students most often choose to write about.

In The Weekly issue published on April 28, 1998, student photographers captured the massive cleanup post-tornado, but on page 14, you’ll find the usual crossword puzzle. Gustavus students are resilient. We acknowledge the changing world around us. We adapt. Then we continue on.

No matter how last-minute this week’s edition was put together or how much the world has changed in a week, no matter what history throws at us, The Weekly will always be there on campus, every Friday. (Or maybe Saturday. If we’re lucky).

OPINION: CORINNE STREMMEL ’21 History Changes, the Student Experience Remains the Same

1940s 1950s

War Rages. Then: Home to the Hill “Raw Eggs, Burlap Underwear, Initiation Unforgettable.”

The Weekly declared the jitterbug dead in 1940. Soon, national and international news and fervent patriotism took over the pages as a world war loomed. The front page of the Sept. 23, 1942 issue featured notice of the “bus leaving for Minneapolis with all college men who wish to enlist in the army, navy and marine reserves.” Editorials decrying Hitler ran next to dispatches of Gustavus servicemen and women, details about the sailors and Marines training on campus, and a drive to get The Weekly sent to Gusties overseas. The full 1943 commencement address, from Rev. Paul Andreen of Cokato, Minnesota, was printed, including the words, “The Lutheran graduate will meet the full onslaught of postwar exhaustion when the momentum of feverish war production has run its course.”

Gusties didn’t seem exhausted post-war. The Weekly was filled with logistics to help the swell of enrolling students, coverage of the rapid rise of campus romance, listings of weddings, and ads for life insurance. Coverage of the College’s tremendous growth— dormitories, buildings, faculty, enrollment—dominated the paper. Sports made a triumphant return to campus and The Weekly’s pages. As did Greek life. “The poor gals sit in the ‘barracks’ every night wondering who belongs to that latest bloodcurdling scream floating across the hills,” read the lead story on April 15, 1955. Pledging, service projects, and active social life dominated coverage. In 1957, The Weekly editors asked, “Are American Students Egotistical Boobs?” The general consensus was yes, Gusties were barely aware of the world beyond themselves, “but we hide it well behind our false faces of pretended interest,” said Nancy Olander ’59.

Editors check the Nov. 11, 1941 issue hot off the press.

The fall semester staff of the 1958–1959 academic year.

An editor overlooks preparations for the press run.

Gusties manually set type plates for an upcoming issue, a laborious task considering the number of words in the paper at the time.

LEGACY: TED ALMEN ’80 A Century of Journalism as a Family Business

Ted Almen ’80 joined the Gustavian Weekly as a student already a third-generation community journalist. His grandparents owned The Truman Tribune in southern Minnesota. After graduating from Gustavus, Ted’s parents managed the family’s newspaper businesses.

Almen always knew he wanted to go to Gustavus, but he didn’t think journalism was on his path. That is until The Weekly almost went out of press his junior year. English professor John Rezmerski organized a J-Term class to teach 14 students about journalism, publishing issues, and the First Amendment, all to keep the paper in press. Though Almen grew up in the journalism world, he learned a lot in the class. “I got the bug.” he says. “After that, I stayed on staff.”

As graduation approached, he considered his career options. With his editorial experience from The Weekly, he thought seriously about going back to his roots. “I asked my dad if that would be possible, and he was overjoyed.” Today, the future is topof-mind for Almen, his family, and their paper, The Kerkhoven Banner. (The family also owned the Raymond-Prinsburg News, and still owns the Clara City Herald and Lakes Area

Review. His daughter, Jordan Almen ’14, began writing for The Banner after graduating from Gustavus. In 2020, The Banner became the only newspaper in Minnesota powered by solar energy. “We’re not The New York Times, but we do take our role very seriously,” Ted Almen says of the role the paper plays in their small west central Minnesota community. “We cover difficult things. That was true at The Weekly too.”

1960s

Nixon Wins. Senior Women “Liberated.”

Frost Weekend (and its queen) was often frontpage news, as was the Homecoming Court and queen, and the long-running St. Lucia and her court. An irony began to creep through the college bliss though, as evidenced by the 1963 front-page photo of Gustie men reading magazines: “Students ‘Prepare’ for Final Examinations.” Another headline, responding to continued controversy over the food service, read, “Students Doubt Existence of Free Expression.” The biggest news was the 27 Nobel Laureates who visited to dedicate the new Nobel Hall of Science, plus the construction and opening of a new “co-educational” residence hall. Shortly after, in 1968, it was reported—with great gladness—that senior women would have curfew hours removed. Toward the end of the decade, The Weekly reflected a growing political and international awareness. Guest lecturers covered such issues as Black Power, Red China, South African Apartheid, and U.S. involvement in Vietnam (not to mention a Gustie fave, John Denver). By the late 1960s, no one was feigning interest in politics. “Nixon Scores in Gustie Straw Ballot,” screamed a headline. Later, a multi-page photo spread from students who attended the 1969 March on Washington appeared. And lots of ink was devoted to the controversial Gustie who sported a mustache during his high school student teaching appointment in Mankato. Gustavus met a new generation of students that included Vietnam War veterans, the first significantly sized cohort

Reading an issue of n.o.t.a (None of The Above), a temporary iteration of The Weekly, circa 1973.

1970s

Great Change as the World Changed

A 1969 staff picnic at the home of professor John Kendall ’49. John Denver + the Mitchell Trio.

of Black students, and a growing number of enrolled women. The waves of protests erupting across the nation popcorned on the hill too, pushing national issues into the campus’s spotlight.

“Some articles created tensions,” former Weekly editor Doug Linder ’73 remembers. “The issues we covered in The Weekly set the table for campus conversation.” Linder went on to become a law professor at University of Missouri–Kansas City, teaching (among other things) Constitutional and First Amendment law.

At the time, the newspaper had little oversight, which allowed editors to cover an emerging critical voice from students. “It was the Wild West when I was there,” Weekly staff writer and editor

Gregg “Spike” Carlsen ’75

says. “We didn’t have the firepower to cover national issues, but we intersected our stories with what was happening in Saint Peter and Gustavus.” Carlsen went on to write seven books, most recently, A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Things You See Every Day (And Know Nothing About).

The Weekly focused on challenging topics, like interviews with the head of the Nicollet County Draft Board and funding disparities for female athletics. It ran student art, recaps of Saint Peter and campus events, and every letter to the editor. The staff also profiled prominent people on campus and around town, like Lorry Lindquist, the athletics equipment manager, and Esther Gains, a local café owner.

“There were a lot of late nights at the St. Peter Herald [where it was assembled] with beer to literally cut and paste the pieces together,” Carlsen says. “It was a lot of work, but it was fun. People worked for The Weekly because they liked to write. And I think we managed to offend almost everyone on campus.”

Franci Dickhausen Rogers

’89 vividly recalls her first Weekly all-nighter in the basement of Co-ed. “I woke up with a piece of border tape in my hair,” she says.

Katherine Medbery-Oleson

’02, who spent four years at the paper, says “I remember the community. Also, we ate a lot of Domino’s pizza.” Both Dickhausen Rogers and Medbery-Oleson have built careers in media and communication and as professors. Dickhausen Rogers teaches journalism and strategic learning at Baylor University. Medbery-Oleson is professor and program chair in the communication studies department at Bellevue College in the Seattle area. “I use my experiences at The Weekly as an example of a campus organization that allowed me to form friendships and gave me valuable experience,” Dickhausen Rogers says. For Medbery-Oleson, The Weekly taught informed, responsible decision-making. An example she clearly remembers: when a company tried to submit ads denying the Holocaust. “I strive to teach all students the importance of media literacy and being a critical media consumer and creator,” she says.

The 1978 staff of the Gustavian Weekly in Norelius (Co-Ed).

EDUCATION Teaching New Communicators

The 1979-1980 Weekly staff. (Is the sign lost to history? Tell us.)

1980s 1990s

Drinking, Sports, and Swedish Monarchs

The 1980s brought the legendary Miracle on Ice, when the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team beat the Soviet Union. The decade also brought the King Carl XVI Gustav and Queen Silvia to campus. For Weekly reporter Dave Chell ’83, “the timing could not have been better,” for national post-Miracle hockey fever. He began working as a Weekly reporter that fall. He covered sports, wrote a column, and in 1982 became sports editor.

For writer, reporter, and editor-in-chief (and Swedish citizen) Carole Arwidson ’84, the opportunity to cover the royal visit “was so personally exciting. I wanted to do a really good job bringing to life what it was like to have a king and queen on campus, to chronicle the event but also convey what it meant to the campus.”

Working for The Weekly “was a crazy, fun, exciting, exhilarating time,” Chell says. “It left an indelible mark on me.” Chell went on to work in sports journalism, public relations (for the Canadian Football League team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers), advertising, and teaching. “My [Blue Bombers] boss chose me out of over 300 candidates for the job because of the experience I had with The Weekly combined with the communications degree from Gustavus.”

Says Arwidson, who, in addition to the royal visit, covered the disappearance of the cigarette machines, changes in alcohol policies, and the controversy of Gustavus switching from Coke to Pepsi, “You don’t do something like The Weekly without understanding it’s going to be a tremendous learning experience. You’re developing writing and reporting skills, but also team building, and time management.” And if you’re an editor leading a staff, “It teaches you your leadership style and ways to adjust it going forward.” Arwidson herself went on to a career in strategic communication.

On the hill in the 90s, The Womyn’s Awareness Center planned the first Take Back The Night protest. The Asian Cultures Club and Black Student Organization planned huge intercultural celebrations. And conversations about Rodney King, President Bill Clinton’s affair, and the Oklahoma City Bombing buzzed on campus. The Weekly was figuring out how to capture these topics.

“The 90s were a really interesting time in history,”

Issues, Music, Pop Culture, and Tech

The 1996–1997 staff in the basement of Norelius (Co-Ed).

says Tanya Strom Anderson ’95, advice columnist for The Weekly. “We couldn’t predict what was coming. But change and visibility were on the forefront.” And there was openness to new ideas. “I pitched the advice column to put diversity in the paper—something fun and light-hearted,” she says. Her column answered questions about student life, like how to deal with an obnoxious roommate or good tactics to ask someone out from their dorm. She went on to a career in intercultural and organizational development.

Troy Alexander ’97 wrote music reviews. He remembers how new technology evolved The Weekly, like email. “I was looking for lyrics from a Pearl Jam songbook for a review,” he says. “Someone emailed me the songbook as an attachment. I got trouble with IT for sharing files too big for the server.” He went on to work in sales and business development for radio, entertainment, and brands.

Todd Whalen ’95, did a host of Weekly jobs, including once writing a review of the Springsteen album Tom Joad, thinking, “I’m not qualified for this.” He did it anyway. “It was my introduction to public works—making something for an audience,” he says. He’s made a career in photography.

The Weekly continued to capture how world events intersected with student life on the hill, like students gathering in common areas to watch the O.J. Simpson verdict or photos of students jumping off their dorm roofs after the 1991 Halloween blizzard. “The best community journalism is a forum to exchange thoughts,” says Alexander. “It was a pretty happenin’ newspaper,” says Whalen.

Tim Nelson ’89 has covered Minnesota for nearly 30 years. The Minnesota Public Radio reporter started writing for The Weekly during his junior year at Gustavus. “It’s really what got me started in the business,” Nelson says. “Being together on Wednesday nights with that crew, it was just so much fun. I couldn’t stop doing it.”

Nelson credits former Gustavus professor and Weekly adviser John Rezmerski with laying some of the groundwork for his career in journalism. “The biggest thing I learned at Gustavus was from John was to not be shy,” he says. “John really made it clear that this job was about finding someone, looking them in the eye, and keeping at them until all your questions were answered. That is the foundation of everything I’ve done since.” Decades reporting on Minnesota—including 16 years at the St. Paul Pioneer Press—has shown Nelson the power of putting today’s news in historical context.

“That’s a big deal in Minnesota,” he says. “Gustavus gave me the sense that you need to understand yourself in a context that stretches long before the lifetimes of anyone you know, and that you have to understand the precedence. That was true both in the classroom and at The Weekly.”

Longtime Associated Press and MinnPost reporter Gregg Aamot ’91 also learned some foundational lessons from his days as a Weekly reporter. “I wrote an opinion piece that garnered some criticism from students,” he recalls. “That taught me that if I wanted to go into journalism, I had to have tough skin.”

Aamot worked at two other college newspapers as an undergrad and a graduate student. “The main lesson I took away is that reporters have to take great care in being accurate in what they report and fair to the people they interview,” he says. “That’s basic to good journalism, of course, but it takes work. I first learned that on college papers.”

POLITICS From Covering the Hill to Covering the State

2000s

The Weekly Goes Digital and The Day the Towers Fell

The rapid technological advancements of the early 2000s meant a shift to an all-digital production, and an online Weekly.

Former editor-in-chief Mike Wilken ’02 remembers the transition from developing film to digital photo scans, and from delivering physical pages to the printer to sending them via File Protocol Transfer. “The quality was so much better,” he says.

The new millennium also took The Weekly to the World Wide Web. The first website launched in 1996, but the site took off when Eric Mueller ’02 became web editor. “I remember it being in bad shape, and that’s why David [Kogler ’01] brought me on board,” Mueller says. “I improved the design of the site and worked hard to make sure it launched on time and was promoted throughout campus.” This was back before “content management systems.” Instead, “Everything was a static HTML file that needed individual attention,” Mueller says. Mueller went on to a career working in digital platforms for the Science Museum of Minnesota, Ameriprise, and now his own company, Pixeleric. In the first decade of the 2000s, The Weekly covered major campus stories (like Gustavus President Axel Steuer’s resignation) and student reaction to national news (Bush v. Gore and the war in Iraq). None was larger, though, than 9/11. “I still remember the issue—the front cover was in full color,” says Wilken. “It was a student writing in a book and a huge candle the Chaplain’s office had put out.” He recalls seeing the back page of The Weekly—simply a large, in-color American flag—hung up around campus after the paper came out. “As a group, our goal in that issue was to try to—as best we could in the one-week snapshot we had—capture the emotions and thoughts of students during that week. It really set the tone for us as a paper that year,” he says. Wilken went on to work in public relations and external communications for C.H. Robinson and SUPERVALU (now UNFI). “And I can still name everyone that was on the team at The Weekly.”

In the late aughts and early 2010s, The Weekly staff gathered in Jackson Campus Center Monday nights to discuss the week’s campus news. “We’d look at the events calendar and ask, ‘What do we think will benefit the students to know more about?’” former editor-inchief Lindsay Lelivelt ’11 recalls. But at times, the staff struggled to balance the student perspective, Gustavus’s identity, and reporting the truth.

The 2004–2005 Weekly staff—with refrigerator—in its basement office in Norelius (Co-Ed).

2010s

Beyond Words, Into a New Media Landscape

The full color back page of the post 9/11 Weekly.

Growing up with the internet, Lelivelt says millennial Gusties were hyper-aware of dissenting facts and bias. “We wanted to make sure that what we were printing was true,” she explains. “When there’s vandalism, do we print what was said because it’s a fact? Or do we censor it because we’re compassionate towards the people who received a hateful message?” Lelivelt went on to build a career as a writer and strategist for both print and digital mediums.

Staff writers captured what was happening away from the hill. River Rock Coffee and the St. Peter Co-op were expanding their locations. Editorials and op-eds discussed the historic presidential elections. But just as The Weekly had done for almost 100 years, the staff kept the stories close to Gustavus. It captured the heartbeat of major milestones: Big Hill Farm had its first harvest, everyone was photodumping on Facebook, and The Fourth Crown became a satirical mirror for The Weekly. The paper also celebrated community members with a “Gustie of the Week” column.

Former staff writer Erin

Luhmann Hinrichs ’08

remembers her passion for writing profiles for The Weekly. “I was drawn to access what makes a person who they are. It’s a privilege to tell someone’s story, from their obstacles to their achievements.” Hinrichs went on to be a staff and freelance writer for newspapers and magazines. “I think from a standpoint of ‘What is Gustavus?’, it’s important to tell student stories,” she says. “For Gustavus and its future communities, these stories create a pathway.” There is newspaper lexicon that dates back to Gutenberg’s moveable type apparatus from 1440. “Hot off the press” refers to heat generated by molten lead pressed into a mold and rolled through a machine. That’s what earlyWeekly editors did. Then came mechanical typesetting, which still required physical assembly— literally cutting and pasting words, plus developing photos in darkrooms. “We had a huge mainframe computer linked to old typewriters,” says Dave Chell ’83. “We typed copy directly into machines for printing onto reams of sticky paper with hot glue.” Says Carole Arwidson ’84, “There were maybe two of us who knew how to run the machine. When there was a typo, we had to cut it out with an X-Acto knife.” By the mid-90s, layout was less knife work and more desktop publishing. “Probably [the program] Pagemaker,” says Todd Whalen ’95. “But there was still glue, and cutting, and elbow grease.” And racing the paper to a printer at the 11th hour. By the 2000s, The Weekly had four-color printing, a digital photo scanner, and the ability to send files digitally to a printer. It happens faster now, butWeekly staff still hang over pages late on Wednsday night. No matter the method, “‘Paste-up’ is a community building experience,” says Arwidson, “We were a team, that’s for sure.” •

THE ARTS The Making of the Newspaper

Heritage