Skiff has changed over time, but staff’s dedication has not
COMMENTARY
Brandon Ortiz

The Skiff, like the university, began in Waco.

In 1902, a cash strapped college student started the Skiff, hoping it would help him “to sail through the financial weather” and graduate from TCU.

Ed S. McKinney’s newspaper is alive and well today, corny name still intact. On Sept. 19, 2002, it will turn 100.
The Skiff is committed to delivering high quality, informative news to students, faculty and staff. We hope to continue the proud tradition McKinney started.

The Skiff, like the university, has undergone dramatic changes since that first issue.

The paper began as an independent weekly. Four years later, it had a circulation of 2,000.

Today, the Skiff publishes four times a week as an official student publication, and has a circulation of 6,000.
New innovations — such as color — have been introduced. Even the way the paper is created has changed, first from labor-intensive, manual type setting and now to efficient, digital type setting.

We’ve been there to cover the important, the quirky and the tragic.

We’ve covered:

• The TCU football team’s first national championship.
• The first black band to play at TCU.
• The campus as it mobilized for two world wars.
• The campus as it grieved the assassination of President Kennedy, who was in Fort Worth just a few days before.
• The Student Government (or Student Congress, as it was called then) passing a resolution urging the university to admit blacks.
• The campus as it coped with the Challenger explosion.
• The shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church.
• The tornadoes that struck downtown Fort Worth.
• The day that changed our generation’s life: Sept. 11, 2001.

As I’ve searched through Skiff archives, I’ve learned that TCU hasn’t changed all that much through the years.
In 1937, students were asking for better food in the dining hall. Someday, I gather, they’ll get it.
The campus has came together for Homecomings and the big football games. Chancellors came and went.
Throughout it all, the Skiff was there.
And this semester, we’ll be there again.

Editor in Chief Brandon Ortiz is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Fort Worth.