To current and former Bobcats: Happy Homecoming Week.
As you dabble in your own personal nostalgia, we at The Post are going to do what we can to help out by running “throwback” front pages each day from a different era in Ohio University’s rich history.
Before dipping into the 20th century, today we take you back to 2007. President Roderick McDavis was in his fourth year in office, and Frank Solich led the football team to a 6-6 record during his third season.
Coincidentally enough, five years ago today Ohio was coming off a loss to the Buffalo Bulls on the gridiron. Times they have a-changed, though, and it would be wrong of me not to give the football team a shoutout for its immensely impressive 6-0 start.
In the words of Brandon Flowers and The Killers, “We’re on top.” Go (now-bowl-eligible) Bobcats!
But the Aughts provided plenty of notable headlines, ranging from 9/11 and the Virginia Tech shootings to Solich being charged with drunk driving after going the wrong way down a one-way street in 2005.
The latter led to a “Frank the Tank” Facebook group during the social-networking site’s early years, according to then-Editor-in-Chief of The Post Brittany Kress, who also mentioned that the Internet was beginning to affect the paper’s coverage overall.
“One of the interesting transitions that happened while I was on campus was the shift to more local coverage that came with the rapid development of the Internet,” Kress said in an email. “As people were finding news from all over the world more easily and also moving toward getting instant, local updates through Facebook (which was brand new — I remember helping figure out, since the website was originally thefacebook.com, if it should be two words and what should be capitalized) and Twitter hadn’t even happened yet — it made sense to focus our resources on the city and campus around us more and more.”
January 2007 featured the opening of the new Baker Center, which meant a number of things. First of all, the new building solidified Jeff Hill as the most arduous uphill climb on campus. Secondly, it meant new offices for numerous student organizations, including The Post.
“Initially, we were supposed to move during the Fall Quarter of 2006, which had us really nervous because even if it happened over a weekend, we were still up against a lot to make sure we were able to get the paper out uninterrupted,” said Kress. “But as it ended up, construction took a bit longer than initially expected, and we moved over winter break.”
If you ask one question to any former Postie, have him or her give you an anecdote from the time they spent in old Baker’s version of the newsroom.
But for the time being, here’s Kress’ take on what state the newsroom was in before the move: “I remember vines growing through window frames and a toilet that was almost always backed up. Plus, we had a pair of green couches that had been there for decades and everyone just assumed were diseased, but people slept on them anyway. (All Posties from the ’80s/’90s remember those couches.) We couldn’t wait to leave that place behind.”
That’s about all for today, but stay tuned — tomorrow we’ll skip to the 1980s on our way back through the years before printing a Green and White front page on Friday.
