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for July 2007
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
- - Benjamin Franklin
Special Issue: Recovering Lives
Exhibits showcase works of journalism-photography photographers
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Lecturer Scott Vallance shows his work at the opening of his “Portal to the Past” photo exhibit at the Village Gallery in La Villita.
Photo by John Goodspeed |
Photography Lecturer Scott Vallance, a nationally recognized photographer, opened his exhibit “Portal to the Past” at the Village Gallery, 502 Villita, in La Villita downtown.
At an opening reception, Vallance welcomed guests to the upstairs gallery where his dramatic black-and-white photographs depicted nature scenes photographed during travels through the Southwest.
He described for guests his passion for photographing spectacular nature scenes, especially formations in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico — a departure from the magazine covers and other forms of commercial photography he creates through his studio, VIP Photographic.com.
He graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography and opened his first commercial photography studio in San Diego, Calif. His photos have appeared in dozens of magazines.
Vallance’s photographs will remain in the gallery through July.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. Prints are available for purchase, and his work can be viewed at http://www.sawhost.com/vipphoto/art/book.html.
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Mac technician and Ranger photo adviser Tricia Buchhorn gladly introduces her work to San Antonio Express-News photographer Kin Man Hui who decided to buy the photo for his collection.
Photo by Edmund Lo |
In her first solo art show, Tricia Buchhorn showed digital prints from her first four semesters at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco where she is enrolled in an online MFA program.
She also showed fiber-based prints and platinum-palladium prints from two books she produced while an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Arlington.
A recently renovated storefront on South Presa, owned by actor Jesse Borrego, architect Darryl Ohlenbusch and mural artist Oscar Alvarado, hosted the one-night show and sale.
A defining quality of the body of work is Tricia’s sense of humor.
She started shooting at 13, and after a quarter century of primarily photojournalism work, wants to teach the documentary approach to photography at the community college level.
In addition to serving as the Mac technician for the Department of Journalism-Photography, Tricia teaches a digital photography course at the Southwest School of Art and Craft.
This summer, Tricia is enrolled in an intensive photo class that shoots regularly at The Headlands across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco. Her class will present a collective art show at the Academy beginning Aug. 9.
Her photos also are available for purchase.
Chet Hunt honored with AWC Headliner Award
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Chet Hunt receives his headliner award from AWC on June 7.
Photo by Tricia Buchhorn |
Professor and Chair Emeritus Chester F. “Chet” Hunt, who retired from the SAC Journalism-Photography Department faculty last year after a 28-year career here, was honored June 7 by the Association for Women in Communications with a Headliner Award, one of the professional group’s top honors.
Hunt was the recipient of the Edna McGaffey Media Excellence Award, named for a former San Antonio College journalism student and a long-time columnist and feature writer for the San Antonio Express-News.
During the awards dinner at the Westin Riverwalk Hotel, Hunt said he was appreciative that the award was named after one of his former students at SAC, the late McGaffey, whom he described as “zippy, witty, dependable and hard-working.”
Hunt provided a brief history of his foray into what he called “the wild and wacky world of journalism.”
Forty-five years ago, after graduating from Southwest Texas State College (now Texas State University-San Marcos), Hunt accepted a teaching position at Calhoun High School in Port Lavaca.
“I was given a choice,” he told the AWC audience. “I could drive a school bus or sponsor the newspaper club. I asked what the newspaper club did and was told they met once a month to discuss newspapers. So I said, ‘I’ll take that.’”
In ensuing years, Hunt established professional ties to well-known journalism educators, including Edith Fox King “and other strong, women journalists,” he said.
After receiving a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, Hunt worked “for six wonderful years” at Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio.
When he began his career at SAC, he said, “I joined a trio of experts in the journalism department — Dub Daugherty, Lynnell Burkett and Jerry Townsend. I was the new guy in town, and they allowed me to find my niche.
“Over the years, more than 4,000 students — many of them non-traditional students like Edna — passed through my mass communications classes,” Hunt said. “This honor validates my decision not to drive a bus.”
SAC journalism Instructor Susan A. Merkner said Hunt’s award held personal significance for her because she had worked with both McGaffey and Hunt.
“During my 16 years at the San Antonio Express-News as an editor and reporter, I worked closely with Edna and truly respected her as one of the pioneers of journalism during an era when few women worked in the profession,” Merkner said.
“Edna’s Club Notes column was extremely well-read, and she approached everyone in the community and at the newspaper with the greatest courtesy and a wonderfully dry wit.
“For a short period in the 1990s while the Express-News building was undergoing renovations and office space was at a premium in the editorial department, Edna and I shared a drawer — not a desk, just a drawer — and she never failed to inspire me with her sense of humor and positive attitude toward life.”
“Mr. Hunt also brings a droll sense of humor to life, and his constant encouragement to all of us, professionals and students alike, to do our best work has been positively inspirational,” she said.
Hunt continues sharing his professional and personal thoughts through his Web site at www.cfhuntonlinehtml.blogspot.com. He also lends his expertise to The Ranger Online on a volunteer basis.
Building multimedia project with elementary school students
Two representatives of the journalism-photography department and a former student are spearheading a multimedia project at Gardendale Elementary School in the Edgewood Independent School District.
Instructor Edmund Lo, lab technician Tricia Buchhorn and former student Vincent T. Davis, San Antonio Express-News reporter, are directing the project in which four fifth graders document their lives using digital cameras, audio recordings and journals.
The results — photos, interviews and their own thoughts about their lives, transition to middle school and vision for their future — will be published on the Express-News Web site, mysa.com.
Davis, a former Ranger staff writer and illustrator, will write a feature story for the Express-News on this effort to gain insight into the lives of these children.
Ranger editor Joyce Flores is following the progress for a feature she is writing for COMM 2373, Feature Writing, this summer. It will be published in The Ranger in the fall.
At the conclusion of the project, each of the four children will be awarded a $250 scholarship to San Antonio College. |
 San Antonio Express-News reporter Vincent T. Davis works with Abel Manzano, 13, in a multimedia project with students at Gardendale Elementary School.
Photo by Tricia Buchhorn
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 Journalism Instructor Edmund Lo and San Antonio Express-News reporter Lomi Kriel show Gardendale Elementary students slide shows from mysa.com.
Photo by Tricia Buchhorn |
 Multimedia project participants of Gardendale Elementary pose for a group photo after their graduation ceremony. |
Internship experience from Laredo
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César G. Rodriguez is crossing the bridge to Nuevo Laredo.
Photo by César G. Rodriguez |
Former Ranger editor César G. Rodriguez is interning this summer at the Laredo Morning Times.
So far he’s had two feature stories that have rated Page 1 play. One is on a Laredoan who plays a doctor in “Spiderman 3,” and the other he describes as “not what I would say is a ‘masculine’ story.” It’s on the first Mommy & Me, Princess Tea Party for little girls and their moms at the Imaginarium.
But masculine or not, the story will look good in Rodriguez’s burgeoning portfolio.
Here’s a link to the story: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18401213&BRD=2290&PAG=461&dept_id=569392&rfi=6
Ranger Online receives recognition
 The Ranger Online has been named a finalist for the 2007 Online Pacemaker from the Associated Collegiate Press.
The other finalists in the two-year college category are The Corsair from Pensacola Junior College in Florida, The Gargoyle at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla.; The Sentinel at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene; and Richland College in Dallas.
The award, considered the Academy Award for online college newspapaers, will be presented at the National College Media Convention Oct. 24-28 in Washington, D.C.
The Ranger Online won an Online Pacemaker in 2005.
Charles Cima is the Webmaster who oversees The Ranger Online under the direction of journalism Instructor Edmund Lo and Professor and Chair Emeritus Chet Hunt.
Fall 2007 Ranger staff selected
Journalism sophomore Joyce Flores has been named editor of The Ranger for fall 2007.
The Del Rio native was managing editor in the spring.
She and 12 other staffers were interviewed May 2 by the Student Publications Board, and the results were announced May 3 at the 30th annual Edith Fox King Journalism Lecture.
Jonathan Munson will be in the No. 2 spot as managing editor.
Other staffers are Monte Ashqar and Regis Roberts, news editors; Sonya Harvey, Premiere editor; Ryan Johnston, sports/health editor; Jared Sollis, opinion editor; and Natalia Montemayor, calendar editor.
D.A. James returns as photo editor, and photographers are Allison Doyle, Altug Icilensu and Derik Villanueva.
Mary Zamora returns as production manager.
Johnston and Zamora are former participants in the Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College, which brings high school students to this college for an intensive journalism boot camp each summer.
Pulitzer Prize winner details reporting on community college corruption
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Brett Blackledge, reporter from the Birmingham (Ala.) News speaks at the 30th annual Edith Fox King Lecture about his Pulitzer Prize-winning stories on corruption in community colleges.
Photo by D.A. James
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By Sonya Harvey
Sometimes finding a story can be as simple as paying attention to what’s in plain view, a Pulitzer Prize winner said May 3 at San Antonio College.
“It was a myth, a legacy, a rumor,” Brett Blackledge, a reporter for the Birmingham (Ala.) News, said when speaking about the widespread corruption in Alabama’s two-year community college system.
Blackledge won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting that exposed corruption in the system and led to the firing and removal of several community college employees and legislators.
“It was bigger than we thought it would be,” Blackledge said.
Blackledge spoke to administrators, faculty and students at the 30th Edith Fox King Journalism Lecture and described what it was like to gather information for a story of this magnitude.
“Let’s start pulling threads and see what comes out,” Blackledge said.
He began researching the story by seeking financial information at a small northeast Alabama campus to no avail, one of 26 community colleges being investigated.
“There was no central accounting, no monitoring system … no checks and balances,” Blackledge said he discovered.
Some of the colleges didn’t have the financial information Blackledge was seeking and he wasn’t asking the right questions.
“I needed to know how they do payroll,” Blackledge said.
It wasn’t until employees from the Alabama Fire College, a technical school that trains firefighters, came forward with financial data, quarterly reports and even a college president’s computer hard drive that Blackledge started to understand the problems with payroll, hiring and the misappropriations of funds.
“The best source of material came from people with detailed information, and they could substantiate what they said,” Blackledge said. “Seventy percent of the information was good proof that what they said was true. That’s how good the information was.”
With the help of employees, Blackledge began looking at financial data and discovered Alabama House and Senate members as well as employees had financial ties to the college system, with those members, their relatives or their businesses receiving payments that were conflicts of interest.
The House majority leader, for example, had part-time jobs at two different colleges that each paid $50,000 a year.
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Brett Blackledge, reporter from the Birmingham (Ala.) News reacts to a
gift of a Ranger T-shirt given by Journalism-Photography Chair Marianne Odom after his presentation at the 30th annual Edith Fox King Lecture.
Photo by D.A. James
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Blackledge said the paper trail led to other legislators on the payroll whom no one could recall seeing actually working on campus.
Chancellor Roy Johnson hired relatives to work in the college system and had a $1 million home designed by architects in exchange for jobs at college campuses. He was fired in July 2006 after the newspaper stories made the public aware of the corruption.
“What is unusual is if you live in East Alabama and are the daughter of the chancellor and have a job in West Alabama 200 miles away; that seemed odd,” Blackledge said.
A federal probe has led to series of indictments, the community college system is investigating 26 colleges under its supervision and the governor of Alabama has introduced legislation banning employment of legislators in community colleges.
Blackledge, 43, a native of Baton Rouge, La., graduated from Louisiana State University in 1986.
He has worked for the Associated Press, Journal Newspapers in Washington, D.C., and the Mobile Register and is currently a general assignments and special projects reporter at the Birmingham News.
The Edith Fox King Lecture has been sponsored by the journalism-photography department since 1978 to honor King, who taught journalism at this college and advised The Ranger from 1958-1968.
The campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has been a co-sponsor since the chapter was formed in 1991.
Julie Ann Sanchez is the new editorial page editor for The Shorthorn this summer. She credits her experience from The Ranger for the posting. "I didn't even fill out an application," she said.
Sanchez transferred to the University of Texas at Arlington in January. Her new assignment is not all she had to be happy about though.
Along with Ryan Johnston, sports editor for The Ranger; Adnan S. Khan, a January transfer to the University of Missouri at Columbia; and Cesar G. Rodriguez, a summer intern at the Laredo Morning Times and a fall transfer to Texas State University-San Marcos, Sanchez was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from the W.B. Daugherty Estate for the next school year.
Joyce Flores, new Ranger editor, also was awarded a $500 summer scholarship and $1,500 for the fall.
Former Ranger staff walking down the aisle
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Amber and Tim share a sweet moment at their wedding.
Photo by Tricia Buchhorn |
Former Ranger associate editor Amber Whittaker made a stunning bride in an outdoor sunset ceremony June 2. A bagpipe player – a cousin of the groom's — preceded the happy couple down the aisle.
Groom Tim Simpson, also a former student of the department, wore a wide grin throughout the ceremony despite the fly buzzing arond his ear. In an open air arena on the Simpson horse farm just outside the city the couple wed beneath a bamboo arbor with background sounds of birds and far off children at play. Deer roamed an adjacent field.
After the cremony. Ranger photo advisor Tricia Buchhorn and photo editor D.A. James led the couple away for a barrage of photos while guests relaxed in the shade with iced tea in Mason jars or tapped out congratulatory messages on an antique typewriter.
As night fell, the full moon, candlelight and strings of white light made for a magical evening under the stars.
 Congratulations to Vincent T. Davis!
On Dec. 15, Texas State University conferred a bachelor of arts degree in communication design on Vincent, making him one happy man.
He joined the staff of The Ranger in fall 1997 as an illustrator but was quickly pressed into service as a writer after penning a four-part Black History Month series the following February that truly educated on little-known passages of African American pioneers.
Before long, Vincent regularly was writing news stories for the college paper. Long a late-night sketcher, Vincent was using his Veterans Administration benefits to earn a degree, so despite many attempts to lure him to journalism, he was tied to his art major.
When an editorial assistant position opened at the San Antonio Express-News, Vincent was a natural to recommend. He spent his precious free hours freelancing stories to the Neighbors and features sections while continuing his studies at Texas State.
We're proud of you, Vincent!
Ranger staffers (below) celebrate the last issue of the fall semester at San Antonio Press.
The student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is thriving again with 11 new members, including five officers.
Professor Emeritus Chet Hunt was responsible for the recruitment of new members. He generously offered to pay $10 of the $36 annual dues for each member who joined by Nov. 21.
Ten of the 11 recruits accepted his offer. They are President Julian J. Aguilar IV, Vice President Robert J. Pohl, Secretary Natalia Montemayor, Treasurer Charles Cima, Public Relations Officer Sonya Harvey and members Eileen Pace Fitzsimmons, Cesar G. Rodriguez, Garrett Redd, Dwight A. James, and Denise Blaz.
Other members are Adnan S. Khan and Amber Whittaker. Former students Jacqueline Jordan, Larissa Robinson and Nicole Lessin round out the membership roster for a total of 15.
Journalism Instructor Edmund Lo shared slides of his summer return to Hong Kong at the Dec. 7 meeting and discussed the erosion of freedom of the press since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule.
The SPJ chapter plans to attend the Region 8 conference March 30-31 in Clear Lake if a request for funding is approved by the Student Activity Fee Committee.
Department Chair Marianne Odom is the lead adviser.
The Ranger staff for spring 2007 was announced Dec. 7 at the Ranger Source Awards coffee. The staff was chosen Dec. 6 after interviews with the Student Publications Board.
Julian J. Aguilar is editor, and Joyce Flores is managing editor. Both jumped into their new roles by covering the College Council meeting Dec. 13 during finals week and writing stories, which returning Web administrator Charles Cima is posting to the Online Ranger.
Aguilar along with video producer Manuel Duran also covered the Dec. 14 groundbreaking for the parking garage,nursing-allied health building and academic complex.
Other new staffers are sports and health editor Diego Rios; photo editor D.A. James; photographers Justin Vasquez and Stephany Vasquez; and illustrators Julio Barjon and Justin Gomez.
Returning production manager Mary Zamora promises to work on design elements and templates during the holiday break.
Three of the 11 staffers are veterans of the Urban Journalism Workshop the journalism-photography department offers each summer. They are Justin Vasquez, Stephany Vasquez and Mary Zamora.
A goal of the workshop is to interest bright young people in careers in journalism and enrollment in the journalism-photography department.
Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Ted Jackson of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans made a return engagement to the Edith Fox King Journalism Lecture Nov. 14 in the visual arts center.
He led an audience of about 60 through the ongoing recovery efforts of New Orleans in the 14 months after Hurricane Katrina.
Jackson had delivered the lecture last fall in which he chronicled the death and destruction of the devastating hurricane in August 2005.
His message a year later was clear: There is much left to do.
Jackson challenged the audience to get involved by volunteering to “muck out” houses or work with Habitat for Humanity in building homes for displaced families.
“It’s the hardest job you’ll ever love,” he said.
For complete coverage, go to www.theranger.org.
Ranger photo adviser Tricia Buchhorn and Ranger production manager Mary Zamora will lead sessions Nov. 28 at the Northside Independent School District Journalism Forum.
The all-day forum brings together 57 journalism students from seven high schools.
Buchhorn will lead a three-hour class in Photoshop, and Zamora and San Antonio Express-News page designer Imelda Robles will lead a session on InDesign.
Earlier in the semester, Buchhorn visited with student newspaper editors at Taft High School and led an InDesign workshop for design students. She also spent two days with news photography classes at Wagner High School where she taught photojournalism skills.
Recruiting is a year-round activity for the journalism-photography department.
Chair Marianne Odom attended a College Night Nov. 14 at Lee High School and talked with students from Lee and the North East School of the Arts about studying journalism and photography at San Antonio College.
Former Ranger illustrator Vincent T. Davis, now a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, believes an interest in journalism starts early.
He visits Gardendale Elementary School four times a semester to encourage the youngsters.
He tells the children that they’re learning in school the things he uses every day, such as grammar, punctuation and figures of speech.
Davis also stresses the seamless path to a career in journalism — taking journalism in middle and high school, attending the Urban Journalism Workshop at SAC, studying journalism here, earning a four-year degree and going to work at the Express-News.
He also distributes SAC toothbrushes and Ranger pencils.
 New Instructor Susan Merkner has revived a course in public relations that will be offered in the spring 2007 semester.
COMM 2330, Introduction to Public Relations, hasn’t been taught in the department in several years.
Faculty teaching COMM 1307, Introduction to Mass Communications, are encouraging students interested in pursuing a career in public relations to get a head start by enrolling in this class.
With a strong writing background, Merkner plans to stress writing as the foundation for all public relations activities.
Writing is the No. 1 skill local public relations practitioners say they want in people they hire.
 Lecturer Cindy Sims is planning a Saturday morning class in Photoshop.
COMM 2324, Practicum in Electronic Media (Digital), will meet from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays in the spring 2007 semester.
This is the first Saturday class the department of journalism-photography has offered.
The popular instructor is hoping students find mastering Photoshop skills a great way to start a weekend.
Also back by popular demand for spring 2007 is an evening section of the department’s beginning reporting course.
COMM 2311, Newsgathering and Writing 1, will meet from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Instructor Irene Abrego is reaching out to students who may not be able to attend day classes.
Students in this class will be assigned beats and write stories for The Ranger.
 Instructor Irene Abrego is volunteering time tutoring two students taking logic classes.
Ranger associate editor Julie Ann Sanchez is taking PHIL 2303, Introduction to Logic, at this college, and Vincent T. Davis, former Ranger illustrator and now a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, is enrolled in Elementary Logic at Texas State University-San Marcos.
When both needed help, Abrego, who studied logic and liked it, organized occasional Friday tutoring sessions in the journalism-photography department and weekend sessions at Barnes & Noble.
The sessions are particularly important to Davis. This is the last class he must complete to graduate in December.
 Four Urban Journalism Workshop students are now on the San Antonio Express-News Teen Team.
Leezia Dhalla, Reagan junior; Gretchen Mahan, San Antonio Christian junior; Melanie Moreno, McCollum senior; and Jeanette Scarsdale, Health Careers junior, were selected.
In a story announcing the team's selection, David Uhler, Express-News staff writer, wrote: "Thirty aspiring journalists from local schools will get a firsthand look at the newspaper and the media industry as members of the 2006-2007 Express-News Teen Team."
The Teen Team will report to "work" at the Express-News and make regular contributions to the newspaper, Uhler wrote.
Some will write news stories and commentary pieces. Others will take photographs, draw cartoons or submit blogs for the newspaper's Web site. All contributors will be paid for their work.
 The Ranger staff sponsored Chalk Day and brought the San Antonio Express-News promotional Hummer to campus Oct. 6 to celebrate National Newspaper Week.
Staffers in red Ranger T-shirts provided chalk to students in the mall area south of Loftin Student Center and encouraged them to practice their right of free speech by writing or drawing a message on the sidewalk.
Many did -- and messages included political statements, a variety of religious views and a few love declarations.
The Ranger staff's prayers for rain -- to avoid having to clean the sidewalks -- were answered Oct. 10.
 The journalism-photography department sponsored a displaytable at the Texas Association of Journalism Educators convention Oct. 15 at the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk Hotel.
The convention drew 810 high school journalism teachers and students from around the state. Former Ranger editor Pat Gathright, yearbook adviser at St. Mary's Hall, coordinated the convention.
Ranger staffers Isaac Brown, C駸ar Rodriguez and Alan Nieschwietz and lab technician Tricia Buchhorn helped faculty members Marianne Odom, Irene Abrego, Edmund Lo and Susan Merkner staff the table throughout the day.
 Fifty students and 22 professional communicators attended “Meet the Pros” Oct. 24 in Loftin Student Center.
The event was sponsored by the Association for Women in Communications with help from the journalism-photography department.
The event gave students a chance to visit with professionals in journalism and writing, advertising and marketing, multimedia, public relations, graphic design, and broadcasting.
“I heard so many wonderful comments from the students of how helpful and informative the evening was,” said Ashlee Tondree, communications specialist with Catholic Life Insurance, who coordinated the event.
Former Urban Journalism
Workshop participants Nicte Hayes (2003) and Melanie Moreno (2005) attended. Hayes is studying public relations at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Moreno is a senior at McCollum High School working on the school’s student magazine.
Journalism-Photography Chair Marianne Odom and Instructor Susan Merkner shared their expertise on print journalism.
 Former Ranger editor Kristina Lindberg showed photos and discussed her trip to Moscow in July at a meeting of the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Oct. 17.
She and her husband, Braendon Lindberg, spent five days exploring the Russian capital, including seeing Red Square, the White House, Lenin's Tomb and the gigantic shopping mall Gum.
Her husband speaks fluent Russian, which she said she found essential.
"For the first time, I knew what it would be like to be illiterate," she said of trying to read signs in Russian.
Lindberg is a native of Germany.
Other former Ranger editors who have come back to the department to speak to students this semester are Laura E. Jesse and Johnny Ludden, both reporters at the San Antonio Express-News.
Jesse, who covers City Hall, addressed The Ranger staff at its first meeting Sept. 1, to offer encouragement and advice.
Ludden, who covers the Spurs, shared his experiences doing the job he had wanted since high school. He assured journalism students they were in the right place to get a head start on whatever aspect of journalism they want to pursue. (See story below).
 Students, faculty and staff from the journalism program stop for a photo (right) on their trip to Laredo to visit the Laredo Morning Times.
Students in COMM2311, COMM2315 and COMM1316 were invited to attend the annual field trip to visit a commercial newspaper. In the past, the group has visited the Houston Chronicle and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
The trip was arranged by Instructors Irene Abrego, Edmund Lo and Marianne Odom with the help of Morning Times editor Diana R. Fuentes.
Fuentes became editor of Laredo Morning Times in May 2004.
In 1989, Fuentes worked for the San Antonio Light as a police and courts reporter. The next year, she was hired by the San Antonio Express-News, where she worked until 1998, when she became managing editor of The Beaumont En-terprise. In 2001, she returned to the San Antonio Express-News as night metro editor.
Fuentes has worked for Hearst Newspapers for more than 20 years, including stints at the San Antonio Express-News as Austin Bureau chief, assistant state editor, regional editor and political editor. She also has worked for the Del Rio News-Herald and for the now-closed Laredo News, where she started her journalism career on the copy desk in 1977.
 Covering the Spurs was a dream former journalism student Johnny Ludden made come true through his studies at San Antonio College.
"I knew I wanted to be a sports writer ever since I was a sophomore in high school," San Antonio Express-News reporter Johnny Ludden said Sept. 8, offering words of motivation to a group of journalism students at a Brown Bag lunch in Room 209 of Loftin Student Center.
Ludden is now in his ninth year covering the San Antonio Spurs for the Express-News, and he writes about 300 bylined stories each year.
"I've written for these guys so long that it becomes difficult," Ludden said. He occasionally finds himself plagiarizing from his own previous stories because of the number of Spurs articles he has written.
"This was my dream job as a kid. I grew up in San Antonio and always wanted to cover the Spurs," Ludden said. "I'm covering the most successful period in the Spurs franchise history."
After graduating from John Marshall High School, Ludden enrolled here from 1989 to 1991, earning first the sports editor position and then editor of The Ranger.
"Professors here helped me get my first job at the Express," Ludden said.
In 1991, he transferred to the University of Texas in Austin where he began writing for the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. He served as sports editor and managing editor there. In 1995, he won an internship at the Washington Post.
"When you start out, you always get these horrible assignments," Ludden said, telling the students about a feature story on synchronized diving that he had been assigned.
Ludden was eventually offered a newspaper design job at the St. Petersburg Times, but instead decided to work the design desk at the Washington Post.
Four or five months later, Ludden received a call from the Express-News and was asked to return to San Antonio to cover college football. Having prior knowledge that he would be assigned to cover the San Antonio Spurs after a couple of years, he accepted the position.
"I started covering the Spurs in the lockout season," Ludden said. He recalled his earlier meetings with Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the Spurs. "Pop could be pretty intimidating at first when I started covering the team."
Students were excited to hear about some of the many perks that a journalism career can offer, such as travel and celebrity acquaintances.
Because the Spurs have so many players from other countries, Ludden has had the chance to travel to Argentina, France and Italy.
Ludden notes there is a downside to so much travel. "I spend about a third to half of my year in a hotel room."
Needless to say, a telephone conversation with Tony Parker is not at all uncommon for Ludden.
"When I'm on the road I can sit through everything," Ludden said, explaining how he gets more one-on-one time with Spurs team members during travel.
"If you cover an NFL team, you're probably only going to talk to the quarterback once a week," Ludden said.
After nine years, Ludden has had the opportunity to gain the team's trust, learning more about the team than is written in his stories. When asked to impart any juicy, off-the-record stories concerning the Spurs, he responded with humor.
"I always joke that I'm saving them for the book," Ludden said.
Story by Jonathan Munson, COMM2311 student
 Students in Instructor Edmund Lo's COMM2325 class are working to upload www.theranger.org.
Web administrator Charles Cima (left), a member of the class, supervises student participation.
Cima is working with other staffers to add features to the site. The Sept. 29 issue includes a video Verbatim, which was taped by Julian Aguilar IV, a student in COMM2311.
Four COMM2311 students have assumed editorial positions on The Ranger.
They are premiere editor, Denise Blaz; news editor, Robert J. Pohl; calendar editor, Garrett Redd; and verbatim editor, Julian Aguilar IV.
Also new is circulation manager Sonya Harvey.
Adam Yanelli, a former sports editor at The Ranger and editor of The Fourth Write, has moved from the Uvalde Leader-News to Fort Bend County as editor of Fort Bend/Southwest Sun in Sugar Land.
"And so far, so good," Yanelli wrote. "We're owned by Houston Community Newspapers, which owns 35 in the area, so things have been a little different from what I was used to." He said folks have welcomed him and complimented him on his work. "I immediately attributed it to the SAC journalism department."
Yanelli can be reached at
Fort Bend Sun
Houston Community Newspapers
13815 Southwest Freeway
SugarLand, TX 77478
281/242-1812
hcnonline.com
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