The Advocate 50+ Anniversary Reunion Oct. 7-9, 2022

1104 7th Avenue South,Moorhead MN 56563

07 October, 2022

Description

ScheduleRegistration: 3 to 5 p.m. FridaySocial with open bar: 5 to 8 p.m. FridayAwards presentation: 11 a.m. SaturdayFootball game v. Minot State: NoonOther events and locations TBD will be added as available. Suggestions for events and activities are welcomed.Also welcomed are all mass comm types, KMSC staff, Student Senators, and other Friends of the Advocate.For More Information on all MSUM 2022 Homecoming events, click here. Following are the biographies of the 2022 Distinguished AlumniJeff BurrillI literally grew up on the MSUM campus though it was called Moorhead State Teachers College at the time. In 1952, when I was seven years old the Burrill family moved to 606 11th Street South. We resided there until 1959, which is when th¬e state purchased our house and two others then built the Hagen Hall science building on that property. However, during those seven years the campus served as a playground for my childhood friends and me. It was there that we played baseball, touch football, hide and go seek, dodgeball, and starlight moonlight among other fun-filled games. We also snuck into Dragon and Moorhead High School football games through a hole in a fence. Following graduation from Moorhead High, I enrolled at my future alma mater, now called Moorhead State College where I majored in English. And what an English department it was with instructors such as Dr. Clarence “Soc” Glasrud and soon to be MSC President Dr. Roland Dille. However, a few years into my college education, I decided to get something out of the way—military service--so I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. After duty in Viet Nam, I returned to Moorhead State to finish my education and a pleasant surprise awaited me. During my two year absence MSC had added a Mass Communications major to its curriculum. Esteemed journalist Roger Hamilton was chairperson of the newly formed department, while Marv Bossart and Howard Binford entertainingly taught many of the classes. During my first tenure at MSUM I had written for the college newspaper the Western Mistic. In addition, I was a writer for Moorhead’s weekly newspaper the Red River Scene, later renamed Valley Times. Also, a satirical publication, the Apex, accompanied the Red River Scene. (B.A. Schoen and I shared lots of laughs while working on that paper.) During my second college enrollment, Mr. Binford afforded me scholastic credits for writing articles for his monthly publication, Howard Binford’s Guide. One of the highlights during that time of my education was a summer internship I participated in at the Fargo Forum. I loved the atmosphere of the newsroom and also had the privilege of interacting with journalist Bob Lind. Following graduation, I moved to the Twin Cities area where Moorhead State Mass Communications graduate Greg Kleven got me a job interview with the Sun News, a company he spent forty-two years with as a sports writer and sports editor. With the weekly Sun News I was a writer and assistant sports editor for the Woodbury/Cottage Grove edition. I was next employed by the Burnsville Current, a weekly Minneapolis suburban newspaper. During my time there I was a columnist, feature writer, sports editor, business editor, photographer, and layout artist all at once. (You’ve got to love weekly newspapers.) In addition, I freelanced as editor of the monthly Calhoun Beach Club magazine. I also wrote feature stories for Minneapolis-St. Paul magazine, which included telephone interviews with Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers and Liberace’s manager. (Liberace was soon to perform in the Twin Cities but apparently was too busy to talk about it that day.) After a number of years with the Current, I accepted a job as editor of Eagan This Week newspaper. In addition to editorial duties, I continued to write feature stories and take pictures while also writing movie reviews. Eventually, I followed a dream which led me to Van Nuys, California, where I spent a number of years as a supervisor at a Kinko’s Copy Shop. During that time I began seeking a now being pursued from Moorhead screenwriting career. Upon returning to Moorhead, I began working for a security company. I also volunteered for various Moorhead State University events, leading to a five year tenure on the Alumni Foundation Board of Directors. Then last May my friend, former college classmate, and committee member, Katherine Tweed, contacted me about being chosen as one of the five early Mass Communications majors to be honored at the Advocate 50 + Anniversary Reunion. I was, and remain, filled with disbelief and joy. For this honor I thank the committee members and I thank Moorhead State Teachers College, Moorhead State College, Moorhead State University, and Minnesota State University Moorhead. Go Dragons! Carl GriffinA native of St. Paul, Griffin transferred to Minnesota State University Moorhead in 1967. He was one of only seven Black students at the time. Griffin co-founded the Afro-American Friendship Organization among students of the three local campuses, he was an editor and reporter for the school paper, The Mistic, and he was one of the reasons why Moorhead State was the center of Vietnam War protests in Greater Minnesota. The college’s arts programs originally attracted him to MSUM. He enrolled in the music program with the intent of morphing his 13 years of classical piano training into a music education career. However, MSUM later launched its program in mass communications, and Griffin decided that would be a better fit, compared with the music program. While still a student, Griffin began his professional journalism career. He was the first African American reporter in 1969 for The Forum, Field Secretary for the U.S. Student Press Association, a news assistant at the Washington Post, and a reporter and columnist at the Minneapolis Tribune. In 1980 he launched a new career nonprofit program administrator for several organizations, including the American Red Cross, Pillsbury United Neighborhood Services, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center, and Plymouth Christian Youth Center. He also spent several years as a consultant to a variety of other non-profit organizations. He was recognized for his work in social justice, community building, inclusion and cultural diversity from several organizations including: • Headwaters Foundation for Justice Allies for Justice Award • African American Family Services in recognition for developing and expanding Board recruitment • National American Red Cross Cultural Diversity Ambassadors Now retired, he continues to work for social justice, LGBTQ rights, and racial equality. Recently he launched a project with three of his MSUM classmates, who all grew up in St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood to tell their stories through oral histories and interviews. The three MSUM classmates are Russel T. Balenger, Readus W. Fletcher, and Lewis Scott. Nancy Edmonds Hanson Hanson has been a published writer since the age of 8, when the Dakota Farmer printed her poem about baking cookies on its youth page. (She pioneered the rare rhyming of “flour” and “hour.”) At 17, on the day after graduating from Streeter High School, she took a break from her search for a summer job in Fargo – where she was soundly rejected as a waitress, dime-store clerk and nursing-home laundry helper – to climb the long, dark staircase at The Forum and submit the youth essay contest entry she had written two nights before in her bedroom. It was about psychedelic music (this was 1967, remember), an unlikely subject for a girl from the Great Dakota Outback. Entertainment editor Jerry Ruff looked at it and said, “Give me a minute.” While she quaked, he showed it to executive editor Lloyd Sveen and returned … to not only accept the essay for the contest at the princely sum of $10, but also offer her a summer internship. She continued to work at The Forum for the next seven-plus years, apparently as the youngest reporter The Forum had ever hired. During that time she worked nightside, covered the police, reported on the Dilworth City Council and Cass County Commission and worked as a general assignment reporter. Upon graduation from Moorhead State College in 1971, she was named the paper's first full-time arts editor. She also wrote two weekly columns, one on rock music and the other on whatever came to mind. Meanwhile, she took classes from Roger Hamilton, Howard Binford, Marv Bossart and Lyle Huseby in the Moorhead State College Department of Mass Communications. She also did freelance writing for a variety of publications including North Dakota Horizons, for which she was a principal contributor for more than a decade. She was recruited by North Dakota travel director Joe Satrom in 1974 to become the tourism department's assistant director; much of her work focused on the nation's bicentennial. There she met the guy at the next desk, photographer Russ Hanson, to whom she's been married for 47 years. Nancy left secure employment in 1977 to head into the unknown world of full-time freelancing. A few years later, when a friend in the newspaper business marveled that she could survive – no, thrive – as an independent, she wrote a proposal for the book that become How You Can Make $20,000 a Year Writing (No Matter Where You Live). She hated – still hates – the title, but her editor at Writers Digest Books assured her the dollar sign would help it stand out on the shelves. It did. So did the second edition in 1986, when the number was changed to $25,000. All told, the books have sold almost 300,000 copies over the years and were the company's annual top seller on many occasions; both were selections of the Book of the Month, Fortune, Paperback and Writers Book Clubs. She, Russ and their colleague Sheldon Green also produced a series of five photo-essay books on North Dakota's history, culture and quirks for the North Dakota centennial in 1989; the Dakota Graphic Series sold about 50,000 copies. As a freelancer, Nancy produced and edited a variety of trade and corporate publications, wrote for regional and a few national magazines, and produced the weekly TV news review “North Dakota This Week” for Prairie Public Television. In 1980 her old teacher Howard Binford asked her to write the cover stories for his monthly “Howard Binford's Guide.” That led to her and Russ's move to Moorhead in 1984 to ostensibly buy the magazine, a deal that ultimately fell through. Instead, she spent the next six years as creative director of a Fargo advertising agency before re-declaring her independence as a partner, with her husband, in Hanson Photo.Video.Communication. She also continued to operate her regional book publishing and distribution company, Prairie House, until 1996, distributing titles from independent publishers throughout the Midwest. Back on the now-MSU campus, Martin Grindeland asked Nancy to fill in for another mass comm adjunct who had fallen ill. That was 1991. For the next 27 years she taught media writing and public relations practices in the department, a huge unexpected pleasure for a woman who'd sworn at an early age not to follow in her teacher mother's footsteps. Encouraging students to believe in themselves as writers was one of premier joys of her life! Today, the more-or-less-retired Moorhead partisan writes much of the editorial content for the weekly FM Extra newspaper. Writing continues to be as natural as breathing (or wheezing, during hay fever system). She continues to have opinions on pretty much everything – including the incredible journey for which the MSC-MSU-MSUM Department of Mass Communications helped prepare her. Barbara LavalleurI was the first person to major in Mass Communications at MSC • After working at The Forum in Fargo, as a staff writer, working the night shift, writing obits, having a police beat, writing features*, I taught Beginning News Writing at MS for which I received 3 credits and no money. • Marv Bossart was my advisor • I was the first "whitey" of the Institute for Minority Group Studies which consisted of one white person, one Chicano, one Native American and one African American (using terms we used then). I don't know if it still exists or not. Since I was the only student in the group, one of my functions was to drive to Hector Airport and pick up our speakers and bring them to campus for their lectures. (People like Dennis Banks.) • I was the first person in my family to obtain a four-year degree. • It took me nine years to complete my four-year-degree because I worked part-time & full-time, got married 2x (to MS students) and divorced 2x and, also looked after my sister's infant son and daughter who were living with me. • I graduate Summa Cum Laude, however, was not able to attend my graduation during winter quarter as I was already working in the Virgin Islands. • My first job out of college was as Editor of Carib Magazine in the US Virgin Islands. I found the job in the back of a magazine in the Mass Comm Department publications shelf. I called and "sold myself over the phone" to Senator Earl Ottley who owned the newspaper. I told him that since I'd just graduate and had no money, would he please send me the money to buy a plane ticket to Charlotte Amalie via New York where I was to meet him, and he would give me the keys to the office. I learned I was the editor, photographer, staff writer, layout person and fact checker. I was the only employee. Eventually, I moved to Christiansted on St. Croix where I had: no office, no phone, no typewriter (WAY before cell phones & the internet), no mailbox and how I got my stories and photos was walking the streets and talking to people. • I lived in Europe for 20 years, two years in England (married to an Englishman), had two daughters & moved to Germany where we lived for 18 years before our 20-year marriage ended and I returned to Minnesota. • I've had multiple one-woman photo exhibitions during my senior year at MSC and in Germany, MN, ND and IA. • Last November, I published my memoir, Front Row Gal, after research and writing for four years and 76 years of living! It is available on Amazon in paperback and eEdition the latter which includes over 50 photos. • My husband, Arnie Bigbee, a retired Mayo Clinic employee of 32 years and I have lived in our condo in Edina for over 16 years. My daughters, Andrea and Claire are both homeowners and live in Texas and Minnesota. They are both successful, artistic and business owners. B.A. Schoen I was privileged. I didn't look at a college education as a path to the middle class, I already was. Even when I didn't have a job or money in the bank, in my attitude, I was never poor. I thought a college education was a part of what made one a full participating citizen. This might be the most important thing that I have received from my Mass Comm education; I am equipped to process the information drenching us and making the truth tougher to discern. My career in Journalism is short in terms of employment but long in terms of engagement. Melva Moline encouraged me to submit something to the MISTIC so I wrote a column: "The View From The Floor." I had two classes in Maclean Hall in the afternoon but they weren't consecutive, there was about an hour break in between. I would spend the time, sitting on the floor in the hallway. I wrote down some of my musings and observations.They were published. The next year my friend Wayne McFarland approached me with his idea for an "underground" newspaper for the F/M market. Wayne was an entrepreneur who had his pulse on the market sector represented by the many college aged people in the area. He had made a deal with the publishers of the "Valley Times" and "APEX" was basically an offshoot of it. It was an exciting and successful time for me. The 1968 Presidential campaign, the primaries in particular were fertile ground for someone to begin their career. I learned an incontrovertible truth about Media: they always need content. I solicited and published prose and graphics from students from the three area colleges and came to the notice of Howard Binford because he required his students to get their work published. Binford called me one day and said something like: "You know you have some talent but you have no idea what you're doing. You should take a few courses and learn a little about the profession you are following." It was the first time I ever thought of it as a profession or voluntarily taking a language course. It turned out to be a fortuitous phone call. I had been floundering in the Science courses I had been taking in a doomed pre-Med major. I had most of my core curriculum requirements covered and getting a Mass Comm major was possible without extending my time at Moorhead and relative poverty for too long. I had some great instructors and was given a great opportunity to work in the WDAY Newsroom with the Sainted Marv Bossart. I completed my studies in December, 1969 and returned to New York, where I got a job in a multimedia company. Sadly, my marriage was ending, my wife took our son back to Minnesota, where she was from and I had to give up a job I enjoyed very much and move to the Twin Cities so I could be an active father to my son. (B.A. later returned to the east coast in 1982, where he had three more children. Today he has 10 grandchildren.) I needed to earn as much money as I could, immediately and that meant highway construction, specifically, truck driving. I did have one interlude when I was a sportswriter for the Tampa Tribune but it was the end of my full time employment in Media. That doesn't, by any means, say that I haven't "used my Education". I have practiced the skills I learned as a Mass Comm student at MSUM to further almost every enterprise I have engaged in since then. Howard Binford said he had a newsletter or some sort of house organ at every place he worked. That stuck with me and, over the years, I have come to understand how useful they can be. When I worked for Amoco Oil Company, I was the editor of my unit's contribution to our regional newsletter. I wrote stories and encouraged some of the other drivers and clerks to try their hand at a little self-expression. I worked nights, so I was given access to the company computer and, unique for the company's drivers, an email account. Not a big deal but I think we accomplished some of the main benefits of Mass Media; we connected people and we made ourselves heard. My experience as an editor taught me how to get my stories into various media outlets. Once, in the early 1980s, I got an article in our local weekly for six or seven weeks in a row just to show "Boss Binford'' that I had been paying attention. Some of you might remember when he would tell stories about flacking for a traveling carnival and how he considered the high point of his efforts was when a local, small town paper featured his press release about the daredevil who dove off a 100' tall platform into a stock tank only 3' deep. One of my "scoops" was that I spoke at my father's Rotary Club's weekly lunch. When I was the Junior High Wrestling coach I wrote a newsletter every week. It started as I was making notes on my student athletes' performance and I found it easier to write a narrative. It served some of the other aims of Communications, it informed and influenced the opinions of its audience; in this case, the Wrestlers and their parents. I wanted the parents to know about our activities, values and goals. I hoped to increase their participation, attending their sons' matches and understanding the sport -using information to combat preconceptions. It was also an incentive for the wrestlers, they all wanted a positive notice in print. All the references were positive, this wasn't a scandal sheet or investigative journalism. I came up with many synonyms for losing without ever using that verbiage. "Little Johnny gained valuable experience in his short tenure on the Mat Thursday" meant the same thing as: "your son was pinned in 24 seconds" but was much more palatable for Mom and Dad and Gramps too. My Dad's last wish was to win the International Lifeboat Race and, with the help of my siblings and many friends, we did. The media coverage we got was extensive, TV Radio, the New York Times and a four page spread in NEWSDAY, our local daily. In my time as a school board Trustee and advocate for Public Education, my understanding and use of the media has been central to my success. I was recently inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, largely on the basis of my journalism. I am accredited by USA Wrestling and have covered all sorts of events, all over the country.