Over 125 years, hundreds of Bradley students have been involved with The Scout. Here are some of alumni’s favorite memories from the newsroom.
Brett Halbleib, 1986-88
“[In] my senior year (1987-88) our basketball team was really good (led by Hersey Hawkins). Before the season, I wrote a piece lamenting how easy our schedule was and poking light fun at some of our opponents. I predicted a victory over West Virginia by about 32 points. An irate West Virginia fan wrote back, berating my lack of knowledge of the Mountaineers program and demanding I eat crow if Bradley doesn’t win. If memory serves, we won by 34. Sweet validation.”
Yosha Taylor-Bourgea, 1993-96
“I have fond memories of staying up late doing layout on PageMaker, a wonderful program that gave way to something called (I believe) Qwark, which was cheaper but not nearly as versatile. Layout was my favorite part of the job, apart from writing …[My] best memory, though, was probably when the Scout editors went to Chicago and won Best Regional Newspaper in the college category at some Young Journalist Award ceremony.”
Lisa (Dwyer) Depies, 1999-2003
“When I would call into The Scout office to get my story assignments or answer questions, I’d usually talk to (and lovingly harass and tease) the Managing Editor or Editor-In-Chief. I later married the Managing Editor, and the Editor-In-Chief served as our best man!”
Steve Depies, 2001-04
“Spending all of my Wednesday nights in The Scout office [was my favorite memory]. There was always a fair bit of chaos on Wednesday nights and figuring out how to manage it….”
Hyacynth Filippi Worth, 2002-05
“My favorite memory of working at The Scout was putting together the April Fools edition in 2005. We created a parody story based on the student body elections in which four of us on staff posed as fictional candidates with strange platforms. This was at the time Roy the Cat was running for president in the student body elections, and his owners flyered the whole campus with Roy’s campaign. We made ourselves laugh so hard with that year’s edition.”
Jaylyn Cook, 2014-15
“I loved the late Thursday nights we spent in the office finalizing the paper before it hit the shelves early Friday morning. It’s a great feeling to see the final product come together in front of you, but more importantly, this was excellent quality time with the other staffers. This is where camaraderie is built, in-jokes are born and lasting memories are made. I looked forward to it each week.”
Lisa Stemmons, 2014-18
“It’s too difficult to narrow down a specific favorite memory from working at the Scout, but I do have a favorite feeling. I’ve always loved how the dynamics change in the newsroom from year to year with new staff but it always managed to remain a place where I was free to be my most authentic self. It’s a beautiful conglomeration of people from varying backgrounds, simply brought together because they have a passion to record Bradley’s history. I’ve yet to find an experience or space that can replicate it in my post-grad life.”
Angeline Schmelzer, 2018-22
“Between all the ‘Scoutings,’ POD runs, late Thursday nights and ICPA adventures, it’s difficult to point out one favorite memory during my four years with The Scout. If I had to choose one to share, I would go with the time we had a Jeopardy night. The first one was over Zoom because we couldn’t meet in the office due to COVID-19, but we made the best out of it and still had some good laughs. It was so much fun that we decided to do it again when we could meet in person. There are so many more wonderful memories that I treasure from my time with The Scout, but we’ll just have to save those for the 150th Anniversary.”
Jonathan Michel, 2020-23
“I can’t pick one, but walking a mile with sports co-editor Matt Lucas in the pouring rain from our hotel to the Enterprise Center at Arch Madness, winning lots of ICPA awards and off the rails Thursday nights in the office come to mind.”
