Northwest Missouri State University - Tower Yearbook (Maryville, MO)

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LEFT: Jim MacNeil, photography editor, prints a cover photo. A part of the new format was the use of one dominant picture on the front page FAR LEFT: After the paper comes out, it must be sent to subscribers Dave Cieseke, circu- lation manager, sends out 1,300 papers throughout the nation every week. BELOW: Janice Corder, news editor, interviews Kevin Brunner for a front page story. Corder was one of the 10 freshmen on the Missourian. i m h NORTHWEST MISSOURIAN 21

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Block and white and new all over New leadership accompanied by a different format changed the direction of the Northwest Mis- sourian. The trend today is for a more visible means of communication in print journalism, said Suzanne Cruzen, editor. After spending the summer thinking about what she wanted the paper to be, Cruzen chose a newsmagazine format. It ' s becoming a popular format now, and I felt as if we could do it too, she said. First-year adviser Mike Sherer also thought this was the way the Missourian should turn. This is becoming a visually oriented world, said Sherer. No one is going to bother with the publication if it doesn ' t look good. A major part of this change was the use of full-page pictures on the front page. One of the major problems we had this year was convincing veteran staff members that the front page picture didn ' t take away from news coverage, said Cruzen. It was more of a promo for our inside pages and wasn ' t used as a filler. Aside from the new format, the Missourian faced a change in staff as Sherer became adviser following the resignation of Linda Smith. I really enjoyed the work, said Sherer. About the only problem I had was realizing the need for more than 24 hours in a day to put out a quality publication. Freshmen made up the meat of the 25-member Missourian staff. We had young, new staff members, but it was great working with them, said Cruzen. It was exciting to get ideas from them. I felt there was more pressure upon me because I was looked upon to be a leader, said Dave Gieseke, sports editor and one of the few staff veterans. But as the year pro- gressed, the newcomers improved. Because they did, the publication got better. Even with a young staff, the Missourian was able to broaden its scope on the campus environ- ment. I think we covered things fairly well, said Cruzen. It ' s hard to be perfect but based on our many letters to the editor, we reached a lot of people. ABOVE: Suzanne Cruzen, editor, discusses a story assignment with Lori Atkins, news editor, and Liz Scott. Cruzen assigned all the stories for the Missourian RICHT: First-year staffers Ben 20 NORTHWEST MISSOURIAN Holder and Doug Ceer are assisted by Missourian adviser Mike Sherer during paste-up. Every Wednesday night, the staff pasted up the paper. mi k

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Deadline fever Deadlines were not a fact of life for the 1979 TOWER staff-they were a way of life. From the end of October to the end of February, the four deadlines hit hard and fast. Things looked grim at times for the small and largely inexperienced staff, but the count- less work weekends and all-nighters paid off. The book was finally completed. It seemed that I was spending every minute working at McCracken Hall, said Dave Cieseke, sports editor, but after each deadline, I was ready to go to work on the next one. The yearbook deadline schedule was different from the weekly newspaper deadlines, and for new staff members with newspaper backgrounds, a transition had to be made. I had more time to develop ideas for yearbook copy than for newspa- per articles, said Ken Wilkie. Writing for the yearbook was more like a magazine than a newspaper, and that all goes back to taking your copy and putting it in creative language. Deadlines were different for the 1979 TOWER staff than in other years, because the yearbook was pasted up by the staff rather than by the plant. This involved typesetting all copy and headlines, adhering them to layout mats, adding lines and graphics and masking out the area for each photo. Because of our low budget we had to go to the econo-plan, said Laura Widmer, editor. I was really afraid to go to an all-school paste-up, because we ' d never done it before. It was so newspaper-oriented, and at that time we had no people who had a newspaper background, so I recruited Carole Patterson who worked with me as co-editor of the Missourian. Layout and design were what she ' d been doing, so I knew she was the person to be production manager. When Widmer began selecting people for editorial positions, only two staff members were returning from the 1978 staff. When all the recruiting was done, I knew I had a bunch of hard workers on my hands. They learned what needed to be done, and they were versatile. Widmer believed that although the staff was small, quality rather than quantity produced the book. According to Renee Tackett, adviser, along with quality, dedica- tion was an important charac- teristic of the 1979 TOWER staff. I occasionally caught some flak from the staff about being picky, said Tackett, however, in the long run it was probably for the best. We were striving for a publication that we could be proud of-no matter how difficult that was to remember at four or five in the morning. The nucleus of the staff was hardcore TOWER; they went to the extent of risking grades or even their own health for this book. V 22 TOWER