It has been a mainstay for more than 50 years on the Pierce College campus, but finally it is being torn down.
The old Roundup bungalow was the spot where student journalists honed their skills reporting thousands of stories over the years.
Behind the scenes, it has meant a lot to reporters past and present as it remained a symbol of the hard work that goes into keeping the public informed.
It has gone through its own technological evolution over the years, moving from simple pen and paper, to different kinds of typewriters and then finally the computer age.
Now that the bungalow, located at the corner of Olympic Drive and Mason Street, on the northwest end of campus, is being demolished, former staff members and an adviser share their memories.
Mike Cornner, former media arts department chair and Roundup adviser who started at Pierce in 1974 and retired last year, said his memories of the bungalow are connected to the student journalists.
“The Roundup at that time had a lot of students who ended up writing professionally and they were very interested in doing some pretty hard-nosed reporting,” he said.
“They were really a force on campus. People picked up the paper eagerly to find out what was really going on.”
“You get certain students you remember because they were particularly outstanding,” Cornner recalled.
A lot of late-night reporting and writing was common at the time the old bungalow was still active.
Reporters would work late at times when the campus was relatively empty.
Former Editor in chief Julia Rogers Hook commented, “Working late at night was always an adventure because the bathrooms were two rows away. There’s nothing like walking in the dark on a deserted campus and being alone in a bathroom at 10 at night.”
“And there were a lot of late nights where we’d order out and grab bites of food between panic attacks over whether we’d meet deadline. It was tedious but it was fun – an excellent training ground for any prospective news hound,” she said.
Cornner recalled that he’d have to keep an eye out for silly headlines as sometimes students would be ‘bleary eyed’ after working late on production nights.
There were times when campus police would check on the Roundup bungalow and find staff members working.
“I think that it was a credit to the college’s administration that they understood what it took to get the Roundup out and they appreciated what it meant to the campus and they understood that there were hardworking students there who were serious about being professional so they just kind of looked the other way,” Cornner said.
The Roundup bungalow has had to endure more than just time passing.
In 1987, it was almost destroyed by a fire. Luckily the building wasn’t destroyed, though there was an estimated $5,000 worth of equipment lost, including five Macintosh computers and two printers.
“There was a disgruntled employee who set (another bungalow 20 feet away from the Roundup) on fire late one night and the fire went across to our bungalow and got into the roof. When it was done, the structure of the building per se wasn’t so bad but the roof was bad and the heat from the fire had melted the computers,” Cornner continued.
“The students still went forward and managed to salvage enough information to put together a four-page paper including a front page story with pictures of the fire and a story about the fire so that was a good memory of when they did something great,” he said.
The old Roundup bungalow has gone through varying changes in technology.
It used to be that Roundup photographers shot only in black and white and developed their own film. These days, digital and color pictures have replaced the older techniques of photojournalism.
Production also went through changes, Cornner recalled.
Production equipment started with ‘hot type’, which can only be seen in museums now.
Then it went to “cold type,” where students input their stories into a typesetting machine. Today computers have taken the place of typewriters. Those who worked in the old bungalow remember not only the stories they covered on the campus, but also the incidents that occurred in the bungalow itself.
“Sunday morning I was driving by the campus and noticed that all of the windows in the building were open,” Julia Rogers Hook recalled.
“Fearing a break-in – a rival school stealing our next edition perhaps – I drove over and found all the doors open and one of my editors sitting cross-legged on a big long table with her eyes closed and her hands on her knees. Papers were billowing around the room and it was like wind tunnel in there,” Rogers Hook continued.
“I had to yell to be heard and when I finally got her attention she told me she was communing with the angels. It was Sunday after all! Needless to say I told her she and her angels had to find someplace else to chat and set about tidying up the room before any of the advisors showed up,” she said.
The old Roundup bungalow on campus may be soon torn down, but memories and thoughts of it remain in the hearts and minds of former staff members.
Former Editor in Chief Jake Finch gave her thoughts about the old structure: “It was dusty, dirty, smelled of newsprint and was our place, safe from the interference of the rest of the campus,” she said.
“Too many times, both at school papers and at ‘real world’ publications, the public’s perception of journalists is not nice, let’s say. Our bungalow provided a safe haven for us to relax and be ourselves.”
Looking back and also to the future, the former staff members gave their final thoughts about its tearing down and the new Roundup room in the Village.
Finch summed up final thoughts on the old Roundup bungalow, saying “The Roundup is a newspaper. It doesn’t have a ‘home’ except on the newsstands. If the new building offers better accommodations and newer equipment, then that will only help the paper and its creators. I always had the sense that our bungalow would blow over with a strong enough wind. I hope the new building is better suited for the work it will house.” Rogers Hook said, “(I have) mixed emotions, I guess. Everyone that ever served as EIC (Editor in Chief) spent an inordinate amount of time in that building. I don’t know how we got to the rest of our classes. It wasn’t the best of environments but it was ours.”
She concluded by saying, “I know the new building will be great and probably a lot better, but for me, a lot of lifelong friendships were forged in that old bungalow.”
Workers begin demolishing the Roundup bungalow, which has been its home for more than a decade. ()