By KATRINA PENAFLOR Campus Life Editor
Today, students know Western’s newspaper as The Journal, but it has not always gone by that name. Over the last 92 years, there have been seven different names for the paper. With each name change came a new perspective on journalism.
The first student-run newspaper began Nov. 18, 1923 and was known as the O.N.S. Breeze. The paper was initially organized by the Business club, and the O.N.S. in the title came as an abbreviation for the Oregon Normal School – what our college was named at the time.
The need for a student-organized paper was due to the influx in enrollment. Published along with the O.N.S. Breeze was another paper called the Breezette, which was rumored to be for alumni. Each newspaper contained only four pages and would vary in sizes from large papers to small.
The O.N.S. Breeze continued to be run by the Business Club until March 1924, when the associated students of the Oregon Normal School took over. And with the new team came the decision for a new name, the Lamron. The unique name was later explained by Richard Black in a 1989 issue of the Western Star: “The new name LAMRON was normal spelled backward,” which reflected the university’s name.
Articles at that time would typically not include the author, unless it featured a short story or poem. Pictures were also not regularly included, which could be due to the cost and lack of accessibility to photography in the 1920s. The first photo ever featured in the Lamron was in a March 31, 1924 issue. The photo was of the Mountain View school, five miles outside of Corvallis, where student teachers would go to work.
In March 1940, the newspaper began to be referred to as the OCE Lamron. This represented the change of the university’s name to the Oregon College of Education, but the title printed on the paper never changed. It stayed the Lamron until September 1972.
In 1972, the students decided it was time to revamp the paper, thus creating the Lamron 2, a 12- page publication.
Mike Haglund, the editor, felt the Lamron was lacking and did not represent good journalism. He wrote in a September 1972 issue what the new paper would provide: “Lamron 2 is a publication that will hopefully embody all that is good journalism. Our coverage will be vigorous. Informative. Objective. Consistent. And creative.”
With the “new” version of the paper came distribution boxes for not only students but also the public of Monmouth to have the paper more accessible to them.
Lamron 2 only remained in publication for two years before changing back to the Lamron.
A complete name change occurred Sept. 28 1989, when the paper was renamed the Western Star. Printed in the first September issue was: “The new name reflects the changing attitudes of the Western community.” One of the first articles, on the front cover, discussed the newly built Heritage Hall.
Oct. 8, 1999 was the time for a radical change of the student newspaper. The traditional paper format was ditched and a new hybrid of a magazine and newspaper was created. The Western Oregon Journal was the name, and the editor in chief, Robert Haddan, wrote in the first issue: “we just began to feel limited by the whole newspaper concept. This new format allows us to be much more creative in our layout and our coverage of certain stories.”
The new format included full-page pictures, creative writing, and the continuation of traditional reporting. The newsmagazine was published on a biweekly basis.
On Sept. 8, 2005 the newspaper was changed to The Journal and that name still stands true today.
