80 years and still `raising hell'

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The Rice Thresher is celebrating its 80th year in 1996. Eighty years of reporting on the issues that directly impact the student body, 80 years of keeping the administration honest and 80 years of "raising hell."

This four-page overleaf serves as only a brief overview of what the Thresher is all about. Eight articles, one from each decade, chronicle the biggest issues covered by the Thresher .

But no look back is complete without a brief history of what the Thresher has accomplished on this campus and beyond. But first, an answer to that ever-present question, Why is the paper named the Thresher ? In a letter to President Edgar Odell Lovett, C. Harcourt Wooten (Class of 1916) named the paper as he wrote, "a thresher ... separates the good from the bad just as a publication should do."

And thus started an 80-year span where the Thresher would change sizes several times, publish bi-weekly, produce several spin-off publications like the Thresher Review and change the very face of this university.

Most students and even Thresher staff members are unaware of the impact this publication has had on the school. A Thresher campaign in 1922 brought about the school song, "Rice's Honor."

In 1948, a courageous Brady Tyson, editor in chief at the time, took on the administration and the country in a campaign to force the university to open admissions to blacks. The campaign began with a point/counterpoint set of letters between Tyson and then-Governor of South Carolina Strom Thurmond. These letters appear on page 4A of this overleaf. In the end, the Thresher name graced the pages of The New York Times , Houston Chronicle , Houston Post and San Antonio Evening News , and the university finally conceded the battle in 1965 -- all thanks to Brady Tyson.

In 1960, the Thresher established the first course evaluations at Rice where students could rank the quality of their classes. Finally, in 1990, the Thresher sponsored 16 journalists from around the world as they converged on the Rice campus to produce several special Economic Summit issues alongside Thresher staff members.

These are just the concrete contributions made to the university; the same editors who made these changes went on to change the world after college.

Jack Glenn helped found Time Magazine in the '20s.

Bill Hobby was lieutenant governor of Texas and the publisher of the Houston Post .

And last but not least, Bill Broyles, Greg Curtis, Paul Burka and Griffin Smith founded Texas Monthly in 1973, one of the most successful Texas magazines. Smith is now editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette . Curtis and Burka head of Texas Monthly . Broyles went on to edit Newsweek .

For all of them, the Thresher was where they learned how to lead.

This item appeared in the Anniversary section of the March 29, 1996 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
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The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.