‘Us against the world’: Celebrating 100 years of NC State’s scrappy student newspaper

It took almost two years to plan, but it’s really a celebration 100 years in the making.

This weekend, hundreds of Technician alumni from across the country will gather in Raleigh to commemorate the first century of NC State University’s scrappy student newspaper, first published on Feb. 1, 1920.

They’ll roam old haunts on campus, tour the newly renovated Reynolds Coliseum, convene to remember fallen brother Chris Hondros, check out Saturday morning’s Krispy Kreme Challenge (which starts at the Belltower on campus), and finally, get a little fancy at Saturday night’s gala.

For most, the celebration will be more like a family reunion than an itinerary of speeches and tours. The former writers, photographers, designers and editors are coming together to reminisce, reconnect and revel in their glory days of student journalism.

Although a good many from past Technician staffs went on to pursue journalism and have distinguished media careers, the truth is, most pursued other fields. Among Technician alumni are educators (including former UNC System president Bill Friday), scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, farmers — even an astronaut (Christina Koch, who has been living on the International Space Station since last March).

In fact, the founding staff of Technician in 1920 was made up of a chemistry major, a textiles major, engineering majors and agriculture majors.

That’s part of the charm of college papers like Technician — papers that operate at universities without a journalism school and are run by many different types of students who typically have no other common bond besides the newspaper.

A national championship and a naked Dean Smith

It’s an aspect of working at Technician that Raleigh developer and restaurateur Greg Hatem (Technician 82-85) found to be very special.

“It created this huge camaraderie because we didn’t have a journalism school, we were all at the paper because we loved journalism,” Hatem told The News & Observer. “I loved photography, other people loved to write, other people loved to edit. And we just kind of came together and produced stuff that I thought was pretty special, especially for the people that were kind of doing it more out of a passion than out of a career path.”

Hatem worked in photography for a few years after graduation before going into business and becoming one of the most important players in the redevelopment of downtown Raleigh.

Hatem refers to his time at Technician as “golden years,” and he has the memories to back that up.

He was on the Technician staff that covered the men’s basketball team the year they won the ‘83 National Championship, and one of his more colorful memories involves the time he turned UNC basketball coach Dean Smith into a centerfold.

Inspired by UNC point guard Jimmy Black’s refusal to be a Playboy All-American in protest of the magazine, Hatem and his friend Mark Ciarrocca got into Carmichael Auditorium on UNC’s campus (“We found a door that wasn’t completely impenetrable,” Hatem said) and Hatem shot photos of his friend “completely nude” (a basketball covered his privates) at center court.

“I spent the night in the darkroom taking a picture of Dean Smith’s head and shrinking it down, literally gluing it onto the photo,” Hatem said.

The photo ran the next day in a spoof edition of Technician, and all heck broke loose. Hatem and some other staff members got in some trouble with administration, but they survived.

“The Carolina people refused to believe that we had actually done that,” Hatem said. “They refused to believe we got in there and we had someone lay naked on center court. They thought it must be fake.

“But Dean Smith was pretty cool about it. He said he was just pleased we had used his younger body.”

Making friends for life

Tim Peeler (Technician 84-87), who was instrumental in organizing this weekend’s events, says that for him, some of the bonds created at the paper have lasted for the past 30-plus years.

“The two sports editors who hired me were both in my wedding and I see them on a regular basis,” Peeler said. “That has been a great blessing in some of the planning with this — reconnecting with people I haven’t had as much close contact with.”

Peeler works at N.C. State, currently as a writer and editor in university relations, but he’s one of those Technician people who didn’t start out with a writing career in mind.

“I entered as a mechanical engineering major and graduated with a degree in English, and the only reason I changed that major was because I walked through the door at the Technician and fell in love with journalism. I learned my career and what I wanted to do with my life.”

Technician had a similar effect on Joe Galarneau (Technician 85-89). Galarneau was a physics major at State who got the journalism bug when he joined the staff as a freshman and was assigned to be part of the White House pool covering President Ronald Reagan’s speech in Reynolds Coliseum.

“I got to hang out with Sam Donaldson,” Galarneau said. The excitement of the event hooked him, and he eventually became Technician’s editor-in-chief.

Galarneau went on to work for several newspapers and magazines (from The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer to being chief operating officer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast) before founding his own data management start-up company. Galarneau is now a digital product and startup consultant in New York City.

He echoes Hatem’s evaluation of what makes Technician special.

“There was no journalism school, so the people who worked there worked there out of love,” he said.

Rachael Davis (Technician 2019-20) is the current managing editor for Technician, and confirms that deep bonds still exist among staff members.

“We all feel like we are family,” Davis said. “We’re a very close-knit group because we spend every day together and all those long nights together. There’s camaraderie and love, we all respect each other and we all hang out all the time. We are each other’s best friends.”

Davis, a political science and history double major, said the staff spent more than 100 hours last semester creating a special magazine to commemorate Technician’s history. Copies will be available at newsstands on campus and online.

Covering the Valvano story

Like Peeler, Suzanne Tobias (Technician 86-90) was also inspired to change majors after working at the Technician.

She entered State intending to go to vet school, but the thrill of journalism (and a particularly tough organic chemistry class) convinced Tobias that her heart was in writing.

Painfully shy when she joined the staff (for her first couple of phone interviews, she wrote out a script, which she read to her subjects), Tobias said the job taught her how to interview people and how to be comfortable around people. Being a reporter gave her confidence.

And as managing editor during the scandal that surrounded basketball coach Jim Valvano, Tobias learned to grow a thick skin. That comes in handy in her current job as Opinion Editor at the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, a paper she has worked at for almost 30 years.

But Tobias, who credits Technician writing coach Dwayne Walls and N.C. State journalism professor Bob Kochersberger with teaching her to write, says her love for the newspaper life wasn’t sparked just through the stories she wrote. It was also about the people she worked with.

“Even though it would be a production night and we would be there until 2 in the morning and then go to Waffle House, that was my tribe, you know. I just sort of felt a kinship with the people I worked with. It was us against the world,” Tobias said.

Dwuan June (Technician 85-90), Technician’s first black editor-in-chief, shared some of the same “us against the world” experiences. He was editor-in-chief during Tobias’ tenure, and led the paper through a pretty tumultuous period.

June, who is an art director and news editor at The Washington Post, sometimes clashed with black student leaders over his efforts to get more black students involved at the paper. And things really heated up in 1990 when the paper ran an editorial calling for the firing of Valvano, and also called for the basketball program to be shut down for a regrouping period.

The stance the paper took was not popular with everyone, and June got the brunt of the abuse.

“I was a little bit more of a target,” June said. “If it’s something they didn’t like, they could blame me. I used to get people beating on my door at night. I got dog excrement in the mail a few times. I found a dead bird hanging on my door.”

But the experience gave June — and everyone on the Technician staff then — a thicker skin.

“If I couldn’t take that, then I was in the wrong business,” June said. “It made us more resilient.”

Despite the hard times, June said the staff got satisfaction in making something they could all be proud of.

“I think it’s amazing that this ‘cow college’ as we were called, that a bunch of students in 1920 got together and decided that they wanted to create this mouthpiece for the university, and the fact that they made it — and it’s kind of the only consistent thing on campus. Numerous leaders come and go, but the Technician has always been there.”

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Notable Technician alumni

Roy Park: Park, a native of Surry County, was editor-in-chief of Technician. He went on to found Park Communications, which at its height controlled 21 radio stations, seven television stations and 144 publications. Park was also the creator of the Duncan Hines line of food products (in partnership with food critic Duncan Hines). The Park Foundation awards the Park Scholarship, NC State’s highest academic grant.

William Friday: Friday was a sports editor at Technician, and went on to become president of the UNC System and an internationally known figure in higher education.

Richard Curtis: Curtis was editor-in-chief of Technician and went on to become the founding design editor of USA Today.

Chris Hondros: Hondros was a photographer at Technician. Hondros became an award-winning war correspondent who died while on assignment in Libya in 2011. The documentary “Hondros,” about his life and career, was released in 2017.

Christina Koch: Koch was a photographer at Technician. She became a NASA astronaut and is currently on the International Space Station. In December, Koch set the international record for the longest serving female astronaut in space.

▪ Read more about Technician 100 events at studentmedia.dasa.ncsu.edu/technician-100.