The KSU Collegian and a ceiling that remembers.

Manhattan, Kansas---Revisiting your past can be tricky. On one hand you have a gage in time when things don’t stay the same. On the other hand you find yourself seeking out something that you can connect with, something that says “I was here.” It’s almost like needing to feel validated in some way.

My friend Leslie had flown in from North Carolina and met up with me in Kansas City for a road trip to our Alma Mater, Kansas State University. Leslie was a journalism student during our days writing for the Kansas State Collegian and Royal Purple Yearbook. We all "lived" in the newsroom. Literally…there was a sofa that many a student napped on between classes. It was home base for many of us and classes were a necessary inconvenience to writing stories for the paper.

Our student publications were a private entity from the university, giving us freedom to write and report as we saw the issues. We published five days a week, took it from tabloid to broadsheet and everything except the plating and printing was student run. We took this role very seriously. We had serious debates over our editorial position. Our "photogs" gave us bold brilliant photographs that we dedicated huge spaces for...as it should be. Our story ideas came with an attitude that was unafraid of fallout. Later in my career I was caught completely by surprise to see that the “real world” I had prepared myself for was actually a bunch of immature adults screaming at each other over the status of tourism in Daytona Beach or brave reporters with sissy editors in the newsroom afraid to ruffle feathers.  It was a huge let down. But I had changed paths and went into advertising not journalism then and had to choke my opinions down and literally learn how to make small talk.

Small talk is actually a learned skill that I begrudgingly needed to master. I'm actually pretty good at it now.

I had transferred to KSU as a junior and immediately got a position working for the paper and yearbook. As a student I  covered several town fires, with my best friend co-reported on the drinking game “Hi Bob” played by watching the The Bob Newhart show on TV...an excellent chance for research gathering I might add, I wrote a story about this brand new craze on TV called "MTV" and in my final role at the paper was a fortunate enough to be given the chance to write a twice weekly personal column on the Opinions Page for my last semester. I usually followed student government and found some way to get under their skin. Little did they know my “deep throat” was none other than their leader, the student body president and secretly a good friend and amazing guy that I recently had the opportunity to reconnect with after 30 years. We didn’t always agree but he did give me heads up on upcoming issues. Between a completely supportive faculty adviser, Dave Adams (RIP), and a core of “Kedzie Hall” friends that had my back, six of whom I have visited on this coast to coast trip, as well as Paul, the most eccentric and "Woodward and Bernstein-like" student Editor. I thrived. Having my life threatened, and becoming a campus “you either hate her or you love her” figure was taken with a grain of salt. I knew it was only college. The final Student council session had all the senators wearing “No Edee Buttons” a laminated button with my picture, a circle and a bar across it. Nice college souvenir I thought.

So when Les and I entered the building of Kedzie Hall, the place that housed the Communications Department and the news room, the last thing I was ready for was another step back in time. But when the door opened to our old news room we literally stood there stunned. How is it possible? There have been hundreds of students in the past 30 years that have come through the ranks of reporters and editors. How is it possible that the newsroom looks the same. The writing room, replaced by computers instead of typewriters was virtually  a walk back in time.  Even the ceiling above us displayed hundreds of signatures that our generation had started with the tradition of signing the ceiling. So many signatures were faded and could not be read. I searched the ceiling. Was I still there? Was there anything that was there to say I had once been there?

Finally I saw it. Clear as it was yesterday. I guess that permanent marker wasn’t lying. I had made a circle with a line through it commemorating the “No Edee” button and it still resides on the ceiling. Later a discussion with a faculty member revealed that during a past building renovation, the school had wanted to put in a new ceiling but the students protested with a “Save the Ceiling” campaign and they prevailed.

I felt like Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk” when he finds his name in the phone book and screams “I am someone.”

There on the ceiling of the Kansas State Collegian newspaper was my signature from 30 years earlier.

And I walked away not completely sure why I felt validated but certain that I, like many before and after, played a role on this campus.

We were the future, we are the past.