History of The Arkansas Traveler

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Wilda Whitescarver, who started work on The Traveler as an advertising assistant and eventually served as managing editor in 1939, was elected "Miss Arkansas Traveler" in 1940.

Miss Arkansas Travelers

From late 1929 to 1955, the University Press Club elected a "Miss Arkansas Traveler." The winner was announced usually at the annual journalism banquet. In the early years, the journalism banquet was held in December and eventually moved to spring. No qualifications were ever mentioned in The Traveler, although all the winners had worked on the staff of the paper. The tradition ended when the University Press Club was dissolved in 1955.

    1929-30 Mary Schilling
    1930-31 Daphne Dailey
    1931-32 Burnelle Boyce
    1932-33 Martha Mayer
    1933-34 Helen McCreight
    1934-35 Lorene Vinson
    1935-36 Margaret Jacoway
    1936-37 Bettie Barnes
    1937-38 Juliet Mayfield
    1938-39 Mary Wood Beauchamp
    1939-40 Wilda Whitescarver
    1940-41 Reba Gray
    1941-42 Evelyn Freeman
    1942-43 Carolyn Combs
    1943-44 Connie Stuck
    1944-45 Lynette Wilson
    1945-46 Wilma Douglas
    1946-47 Carol Schoen
    1947-48 Wanda Wassner
    1948-49 Dorothy “Dot” Menard
    1949-50 Dorothy Wood
    1950-51 Muriel Stuck
    1951-52 Sarah “Sissy” Cunningham
    1952-53 Mary Arnold
    1953-54 Jo Frances Wagner
    1954-55 Nancy McDonald

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Daily Publication

In 1958, Traveler editor Scotty Scholl announced that a special Monday paper would be published, in part to give quicker coverage of the Baylor game but also to provide better coverage of the Little Rock intetration story, which had begun a year earlier and remained a leading news story in the state. The Traveler had been publishing four days a week, Tuesday through Friday, prior to that time. Scholl wrote that if the special Monday edition worked he hoped to increase the paper to five days a week.

The next week, The Traveler announced it would retain the five-day publication schedule. Scholl said that “the extra issue is well worth the trouble because of the added coverage for sporting and weekend events.”

To help, the journalism department expanded its news-writing and editing labs to two hours long and reduced the lectures by an hour. The Traveler reported that “the student journalists serve as reporters, editors, copy readers, proofreaders, and rewrite personnel.”

By 1962 it reduced publication to four days a week and then resumed five-day publication in 1966. In the early 1970s, the publication schedule was reduced to three times a week and then two times a week before the end of the decade. In the 1990s, the publication schedule was increased again to four times a week.

The Arkansas Traveler. Sept. 19, 1958
Ibid. Sept. 26, 1958
Ibid. Oct. 1, 1958
Ibid. Oct. 29, 1962

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Tom Dygard

Thomas J. Dygard was editor of The Traveler during the 1952-53 school year. He was drawn to newspaper work while still in high school, working first on his school paper and then as an apprentice in the sports department of the Arkansas Gazette. He attended Little Rock University before transferring to the University of Arkansas. During college, he continued covering sports for the Gazette, writing about football, baseball, basketball, boxing, golf and tennis among other sports.

While in school, he married Patricia Reddit, and they had two children, Thomas and Nancy.

After graduation, he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press in Little Rock and later for AP bureaus in Detroit, Birmingham, and New Orleans. He eventually returned to Little Rock as bureau chief and then to subsequent similar positions in bureaus at Indianapolis, Chicago, and Tokyo. He retired from the Associated Press in 1993 and began writing fiction for young adults:

For me, writing fiction is fun, relaxing, and satisfying -- an enjoyable change of pace, a recharging of the batteries. ... I did not set out to write for young people. Looking back, I think it was something of a blessing that I did not. As I wrote Running Scared, I imagined the reader as an adult, but after it was finished, it seemed more appropriate for young readers. The result, I think, was that the story did not talk down to teenagers. In every book I've written since, I've tried to keep the same approach."

HarperChildrens.com. http://www.harperchildrens.com/catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=16333 accessed on January 20, 2005.

Editor Helen Tidwell proofs copy for another edition of The Traveler in 1943. Tidwell was one of several women who edited the paper during the war years.
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Gas Rationing

The war provided women with more chances for leadership in all divisions of the university when male students enlisted and were drafted for World War II. Helen Tidwell was elected editor for the 1942-43 school year and was key in adjusting The Traveler's operations to war-time needs. The university didn't have its own printing press, and the paper was printed in downtown Fayetteville. Gas rationing forced the staff to find alternative methods to the city taxi service for moving news copy to the printer:

With the new ruling that ... copy can't be sent to the print shop without some person going in the cab, the Traveler has resorted to the next best thing and is now sending copy down on press days on a bicycle. Don Baker, freshman at Peabody high, delivers the copy now during his study hall periods. The Traveler may soon be advertising for a broken down horse and buggy, who knows.

The Traveler also contributed materially in "a burst of patriotism" by donating six typewriters to the United States Office of Price Administration, an agency designed to prevent price-gouging by suppliers of materials to the armed forces. Members of Pi Kappa, the honorary journalism sorority, also launched a drive to cover the cost of sending copies of The Traveler to the approximately 160 former students known to be serving overseas.

The Arkansas Traveler. October 6, 1942.
Ibid. September 25, 1942.
Ibid. October 2, 1942.

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Bob Douglas Joins the Staff

After World War II, universities were flooded by soldiers returning home and attending college on the GI Bill. After lean war-time years when the staff sometimes consisted of little more than an editor, The Traveler's masthead swelled in 1946 with more than 40 names, many of them former soldiers or sailors.

Bob Douglas was typical of them. He grew up in Kensett, Arkansas, and attended Arkansas Tech and Harding College prior to World War II. During the war, he served in the Navy, and enrolled in the University of Arkansas after his discharge. A tongue-in-cheek profile of Douglas, written by R.B. Mayfield in 1947, described Douglas's decision to attend the university as being a choice between further education or manual labor. Douglas had an "inborn abhorrence" of work, Mayfield wrote in jest, adding:

He is now majoring in journalism, because he thought it would be a snap course and [he] works hard to maintain his 1.14 grade-point average. Although Bob has never dazzled anyone with his brilliance, he has taken on an added responsibility this year of working on The Traveler, and his unlimited energy is already showing results. The paper has been issued only six times, and already Bob has written two headlines.

During his work on The Traveler, Douglas covered the admission of Silas Hunt, the first African-American student to enroll in the UA School of Law. It was perhaps the biggest story in the university's history, and The Traveler published an Extra on the occasion.

After graduation, Douglas went to work for the Arkansas Gazette, eventually becoming its managing editor. The Central High Crisis was probably the biggest story that the Gazette covered during Douglas's tenure at the paper, which one Pulitzers for its news coverage and editorial stances.

Douglas left the Gazette in 1980 to become chair of the university's journalism department. While there, he successfully pushed efforts to name the department in honor of Walter J. Lemke, the department's first head, and to establish a graduate program in journalism.

The Arkansas Traveler. October 21, 1947.
Ibid. February 3, 1948.

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Editors - 1940-1949

1940-41    Ellis Stafford
1941-42    Bill Penix
1942-43    Helen Tidwell
1943-44   Connie Stuck
1944-45   Lynette Wilson
1945-46    Wilma Douglas
1946-47    Bart Conditt
1947-48    Wanda Wassner
1948-49    Bob "Dusty" Rhodes
1949-50    John Troutt Jr.

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Editors - 1950-1959

1950-51    Robert McCord
1951-52    Charles Allbright
1952-53    Tom Dygard
1953-54    Perrin Jones
1954-55    Ed Maxson
1955-56    Ronnie Farrar
1956-57    Kenneth Danforth
1957-58    Sammy Smith
1958-59    Scotty Scholl
1959         Jim Standard*
1959         Armil Snow*
1959-60    Jim Minmier and Ed Stevenson

*Acting editors