Published April 30, 1999

This was a year of progress

This has been a year of remembering the past and looking toward the future for the State Hornet.

Fifty years ago, students at the newly established Sacramento State College began a newspaper with four mimeographed sheets of paper. Their work and that of the staffs that have followed have established a tradition of excellence and service to the community that is recognized throughout California and the rest of the nation.

The State Hornet is taking that tradition of hard-driving journalism and is moving into the new millennium with the State Hornet Online, the newspaper’s Internet edition.

In March our Web edition received first place among college newspaper Web sites from the California Intercollegiate Press Association. It is fast becoming known as the place for students, faculty, staff and administrators to get the latest story about events at CSUS.

Plans are underway to expand our online presence and make the Web site a true daily newspaper.

A key component in making that expansion a reality is the vote of confidence the State Hornet received in this year’s Associated Students Inc. election. By an overwhelming margin, students agreed to tax themselves and increased students’ fees by $2.50 a semester. This secure, long-term funding will allow the staff to concentrate on the neverending struggle of improving and expanding our coverage of the CSUS community.

The past five decades have seen the State Hornet take wing and the next five decades will see it fly to new heights.

To the students at CSUS, we say thank you for your support and we will be here, as your voice and your watchdog, for the next 50 years.

– John Montgomery, editor in chief

A Hornet legacy to build on

I have been working with the State Hornet as a writing coach, faculty adviser and journalism professor for nine years, but it wasn’t until we began preparing for this special issue that I looked at the bigger picture.

The State Hornet has been feisty, provocative, aggressive, silly, outrageous and courageous for 50 years.

It is a tradition well worth keeping.

For weeks the staff has been poring over State Hornet history, getting a sense of who the State Hornet has been, what it has covered. They have been impressed, amused and occasionally shocked with decades of coverage.

In 1957, the student government elections were thrown out after the State Hornet documented ineligible students voting.

In 1960, reporter Phil Isenberg wrote an eyewitness account of demonstrations in San Francisco against the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities.

They read a story revealing then Gov. Ronald Reagan didn’t pay a cent of income tax.

And in 1974, a fearless staff printed a blank newspaper to protest what they described as confusing and inept budget hearings concerning future funding of the student newspaper, an issue that has only been resolved 25 years later with the approval of secure, long term funding from student fees.

But as radically different as the newspaper has physically appeared over the years – from mimeographed paper to tabloid style to broadsheet to electronic – another thread also remains constant. Students who have worked on the State Hornet made it in integral part of their campus experience, making lifetime friendships and professional connections.

Now that the State Hornet has “grown up” with a move into a permanent and professional newsroom in the University Union (complete with indoor plumbing for the first time in six years!), former staffers are reconnecting by dropping by the new offices, logging on to the Web site (www.csus.edu/hornet) and e-mailing messages. The fondness is palpable.

The circle feels complete. As faculty adviser, I will always be in the position of having to defend the newspaper to administrators and critics – it’s part of the job description. But now I have a clearer picture of this newspaper’s success story. It does a damn good job and it does it at least once a week. It is built on a legacy of aggressiveness, honesty, independence and humor that the staff of the State Hornet will no doubt nurture for the next 50 years.

– Sylvia Fox, faculty adviser

Good Hornet news

The 50th year for the State Hornet has turned out to be a landmark one.

Not only has the paper grown to become an award winning publication, but it has finally achieved independence.

The State Hornet will now be a truly student-run student newspaper.

As I finish my term as your ASI President I am proud to have been associated with such a committed and professional staff.

Their commitment to reporting the news and views of Sac State students is to be commended.

This last year has been a good example of what a student newspaper team is capable of accomplishing.

If the next 50 years are anything in comparison to the last, the students of Sac State will be informed, enlightened, and better off. To the State Hornet, as I leave this wonderful institution, good bye and good luck!

– Gary Davis, ASI president

Hornet accomplishments

My heartiest congratulations to the State Hornet for publishing continuously for 50 years. That is quite an accomplishment. The role that the newspaper has played in University life for all of those years has been a significant one. It has grown right along with the university.

Generations of journalists have learned their trade in State Hornet offices and numerous other students who tried their hand as reporters and have learned how to distill information under deadline while writing clearly and quickly.

The State Hornet has contributed to campus life of the students by informing them about the activities and people of interest on campus as well presenting both sides of numerous campus controversies.

The campus is like a small city and like any small city State Hornet reporters have not only had to ferret out stories, but learn which sources are reliable and which are not.

Student reporters have to understand the issues about which they are writing and work with people who are busy with other issues and responsibilities. It has often been a challenge and a success, but the outcome is a valuable resource for all of us who care about this university.

– Donald Gerth, CSUS president

Production Staff

Special thanks to: Michael Fitzgerald, Georgiana White, Sharmon Goff, Candace Luse, Dustin Fox, Chanda Seymour, and the hundreds of staff members who have gone before ...

The State Hornet
California State University, Sacramento
6000 J Street, University Union
Sacramento, CA 95819-6102
(916) 278-6583