I
Octobcr 14, 1974
The Pendulum
Page Two
Viewpoint
Some of our readers may be confused and wonder why there arc
two front pages. Well, the four inside pages are designed for The
Pendulum's 20th Anniversary pull-out edition.
The front page has a couple of the top stories from the Oct. 14,
1974 issue. We tried to recreate the issue and show our readers how
the paper has changed over the past two decades.
We spent the past few weeks interviewing people who were
around m 1974: President Fred Young; Mary Ellen Priestley, the
first adviser; and Debbie Cochran and Patsy Lynch, the first editors.
Besides interviews. The Pendulum staff has been digging
through archives and flipping through old Pendulums looking for
the right information.
We laughed at the out-of-date photos with funky hair styles and
‘70s bell bottoms. We wish we could have fit everything in this
issue but we only had so much space.
We hope you enjoy your trip back in time as much as we did.
An Open Letter
To the Student Body and Faculty
We the editors of The Pendulum wish to extend an open invitation to
you to join the production of the newspaper. We are hoping to establish
a paper which will both serve the needs of the students and the faculty as
well as develop a closer rapport with the greater community.
We intend to report events which are important to both the students
and the faculty, to develop a channel by which students and faculty
members voice their opinions, to dispel rumors by gathering all the facts
and to insure their validity before the article is printed.
It IS our hope that this paper will evoke a response from those who
who read it We welcome editorials, news articles, features and literary
work-any contributions that you as students and faculty members wish to
send in However, we do re.serve the right to edit all work to insure a high
quality of journalistic writing.
Please address all correspondence to P.O Box 5272. Again, we wish
to extend you a welcome to the Elon College community and hope that
you have a pleasant and successful year.
Yours truly,
Patsy Lynch and Debbie Cochran
Co-Editors
tEljc ^enbttlttm
Staff
Debbie Cochran
Patsy Lynch
Judi Dean
Gary Austin
Wesley Rcnnett
Dave Shuford
Douf; Wilkerson
Co-Editor
Co-Editor
AssistanI Editor
Sports
Layout
Photographer
Typist
Reporters
Ray Mason
Vicki Moeser
Lanna Peavy
Michael Pierce
Reed Alexander
Dou(> Wilkeson
Adviser, Dr. Mary Ellen Priestley
Published by the Communications Media Board of Elon College in
conjunction with the Student Government Association.
All correspondence and articles;
Box 5272
Elon College
Dianne Dunker
Al Mann
Gerard Carbone
Roy Avery
Nick Demilio
Jayne Freeman
First co-editors speak their mind
by Amy Logerwell
For the past 20 years, Elon students have known
what it is like to have a college newspaper.
But for Elon alumnae Patsy Lynch and Debbie
Cochran, they have a few different memories.
‘We believed that every campus should have a
newspaper and didn’t understand why we didn’t,”
said Lynch, a 1975 graduate. “I thought people were
doing interesting things and people needed to know.”
‘The main reason I wanted to start a paper was
because this school needed one,” Cochran said. ‘‘People
needed to read something to know what was going
on ”
Lynch said her and Cochran were acquaintances
and decided to start a campus newspaper.
‘I wanted us to be co-editors because I thought just
in case this things bombs I wanted both of us to be at
fault,” Cochran said.
Cochran recalled the administration asking her if
they were going to be printing the truth. She said she
told them "yes” and ‘‘it wasn’t her intention to create
any problems.”
‘‘We were told not to rock the boat or make anyone
mad,” Lynch said.
"Debbie was by the rules, but we acted as each
other’s counterpoint and wanted to work well to
gether,” Lynch said.
Cochran agreed and said that Lynch was much more
radical than she was.
‘We really thought we could better the school by
telling everyone what was going on, because we
weren’t sure if anyone cared,” Lynch said.
"There really wasn’t much enthusiasm for a paper,"
Cochran said.
Lynch said that about four or five people got to
gether to form the newspaper. They were told they
needed an adviser and that Mary Ellen Priestley might
be a candidate. v
Lynch said that from the time they approached the
administration until the paper came out that it took
four months.
“It was kind of ragtag and we never knew what was
going to happen whether the stories were going to be
written or photos would be shot,” Lynch said. “We
always assigned stories and sometimes they were
done and sometimes they weren’t.”
Lynch said that photos weren’t being taken so she
started taking them.
Lynch said she doesn’t remember a lot of the stories
or issues that they had to face. She does, however,
remember writing about interracial dating and drugs
on campus.
Lynch said ihe administration wanted to tell them
what they should print. “Mary Ellen stuck up for us.
She told us to stick with it and fight for what we
wanted.” Cochran said.
‘If it hadn’t been for her (Priestley) we would have
quit,” Lynch said.
‘Mary Ellen got nasty with us if things weren’t done
on time,” Cochran said.
‘I think we were really lucky to get it started,”
Cochran said. “We were more into survival than
creative ideas.”
‘I really just wanted it to be fun and make it like a
recreational activity.” Cochran said. “We had ‘Pendu
lum Parties’ with kegs whenever the time was good,”
Cochran said. “Dr. Priestley would have us over to her
house and it was a lot of fun,” Cochran said.
Cochran recalled how life was at Elon during the
‘70s.
“We were forced to study and couldn’t leave our
rooms unless we had to go to the bathroom. We had
these dorm mothers that enforced curfews. They were
little hags that were overly religious,” Cochran said.
Debbie Cochran
Photo Courtesy ot Phi Psi Cli
“I remember we couldn ’ t go to the boys dorms and if we
were caught the Dean of Women would reprimand us.”
“Things were very regressive with women’s rights.
We were suppose to stay in our dorms all the time,”
Lynch said.
Both Cochran and Lynch said that when they at
tended Elon, some prominent people and musicians
were visiting the campus. This added to their reasoning
behind starting a newspaper.
“At the time, the war was ending, writers were
coming to the campus. Stevie Wonder showed up one
day,” Lynch said.
Cochran said Linda Ronstadt, Miles Davis, Jimmy
Buffett, the Eagles, the Doobie Brothers and Emmylou
Harris came to Elon.
“A student was involved with a booking company
and he would help to bring people to campus during
their scheduled tours,” Cochran said.
Cochran said she remembers an attorney coming to
campus and smoking marijuana with some of the stu
dents. She also recalls writer James Dickey bringing his
mistress when he spoke on campus.
“I remember him reading a poem in Whitley and a lot
of the professors leaving because they were disgusted
and thought he was obscene. Dickey was making passes
at all the female students,” Cochran said.
Lynch, 41, graduated from Elon in 1975 with a
degree in English. She received her masters in counsel
ing from Gallaudet University in Washington in 1981
and is now a year short of finishing her doctorate.
She is working as a freelance photojournalist in
Washington D.C. She has worked for such magazines
as U.S. News and World Report and Time. She has also
worked for the wire service United Press International
for five-and-a-half years and occasionally Associated
Press has used her photos. Her photos can be seen in
national newspapers such as USA Today.
Cochran, 40, graduated from Elon with a degree in
social science. She is a catering director at Hotel Wash
ington in Washington, D.C. She said the only thing she
does now dealing with journalism is a hotel newsletter.
She and her husband, Walter, live with their child in
Vienna, Va.
I love what I do and I don’t regret going to Elon, but
I wish that when I was there that there was more offered
to English and journalism students,” Lynch said.
I'
I
H
mi
de
N(
P*
Q
la
ra
m
sti
rai
he
tei
Hi
mi
of
ao
ge
es
ob
st
di
a
w
ft
it
re
01
sc
P