What do you teach?--An itinerary of years and courses-II

In 1986 when I arrived on the OSU campus three weeks after the fall semester began--a favorite professor had quit just weeks before--I was assigned editing. 

OSU Journalism Professor Clark, and high tech

There was no Internet, no computers, and lots of students.
 You'd lecture to 60 students on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then  hold afternoon labs of 15 students each for the rest of the week. 
I relied on a textbook for structure, and then scrounged for editing exercises in the labs--pen and paper work. My grading was tough--it made some sutdents cry who'd never had a "C" before. Visuals were overhead transparencies. Lessons included headline writing and counting, and more. Print journalism had only recently changed to offset printing. Not much else.
When I  began critiquing the sloppy editing in student newspaper, "The O'Colly, by golly," to teach editing, it was much to the chagrin of the staff, who didn't know me and was replacing their fav prof. Today, some of those students are great friends.
Next I taught basic photography--no digital cameras, advanced editing (students redesigned state newspapers--cut and paste, etc. No computers.). I taught reporting, and also a class in journalism management. On the side, after the O'Colly business manager died, I was interim O'Colly manager for a semester. 
What helped me most was my very recent newspaper experience--organizing the courses was most difficult.
Oh, and those were tie and coat era days too. 
During this time I was working on my doctorate on campus. It wasn't complete when the job came open at UCO as chair of the small journalism department, because the former chair, Dr. Ray Tassin, had retired (Tassin had ironically been my reporting teacher even more years ago when  was an English major at then Central State College).  
Then began a long new adventure, including many more favorite students, but I'll not go into detail on those more than 40 courses, next.

Writing for food--reporter's journey

Two of five reporter's notebooks I filled in a month...Yes, my handwriting is getting worse.

This has been my slowest month of blogging since I started. But I have been writing, for food, at the daily business newspaper in downtown Oklahoma City, Journal Record.

I added it up and had 30 stories of differing lengths in 19 days, plus one editorial column.
I learned about oil company production and financial quarterly reports, and a lot more. The staff does two stories a day, minimum, and I got close, but missed two days be cause of the OPA sponsored honor flight I took May 17 to DC.

Most fun were longer articles interviewing John Belt about his Paseo projects; Bob Blackburn about historic buildings, features on Fort Reno and the Guthrie Masonic temple., interviews with a green cleaner and a Paseo artist, the tornado storm story, and attending meetings on Devon's building sale and a hearing on building demolitions--plus two brief posts on the web on deadline.

Lessons--I got faster the more I did; I can still make deadline; the morning commute through interesting neighborhoods (I avoided Broadway Extension), I still enjoy the atmosphere and humor of the newsroom, and I'm thankful for copy editors who save me. It's fun to hold a reporter's notebook in your hand, take notes and interview people. And, there's nothing like a byline on page 1.

Here's the list of other things I wrote: Energy company quarterly financial and operational report stories: Devon, SandRidge, Panhandle, Evolution, Enterra, Gulfport. Others: Medical building sale, FSB architecture story, Freede tower, Texadelphia, Arpin movers, OCCC speaker, Lake gasoline leak, KCSC, Unhealthy City, Habitat for Humanity move, Oklahoma home foreclosures.

And on Friday, it's great to head home with a sense of accomplishment.

Thanks to all the folks at the JR.

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