UNC Wilmington students will have a chance to witness a part of the history of student life at Randall Library’s Special Collections exhibit, “The Power of Print and Pixels: 65 Years of UNCW Student News.” The exhibit, opening Friday, Sept. 20, will celebrate the history of the university’s first printed media, The Seahawk student newspaper.  

“Throughout its 65 years, The Seahawk has addressed local, statewide and national politics and policy with a special emphasis on news surrounding higher education,” said Adina Riggins, Randall Library’s University Archivist. 

The original Seahawk issues are now located in the Library Archives in bound format, on microfilm through 1999 and online. Riggins initiated the project to publicly post older Seahawk articles online in digital form.

Student alumna Angela Hunt, former editor-in-chief of The Seahawk, stopped by the Library Archives several times in order to find inspiration for her own contemporary articles.

“Angela inspired me to pursue the (online) project further. She had an interest in the history and searching the old Seahawks for getting ideas for stories,” Riggins said.

Hunt got the idea from a nationwide journalism conference she attended and used the idea to dig into her own campus history.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, The Seahawk ran articles and editorials specifically covering major political events such as the voting age, the Vietnam draft, the Civil Rights Movement and abortion rights. 

 “Visitors (to the exhibit) will examine how The Seahawk covered many topics on campus,” Riggins said, “including women’s issues on campus, social and political issues of the day, and famous visitors to campus, including Mother Teresa in 1975.”

“One table is dedicated to news coverage of the building of a campus pub that closed when a new student union building opened in 1983,” Riggins said. 

Hunt expressed a similar enthusiasm for UNCW’s past. 

 “It was fascinating to see how UNCW had grown and changed. The school paper really captured that,” Hunt said. 

Hunt found several interesting articles, including one written by former UNCW student Bill Dobo. Dobo Hall was named after the Dobo family, including Bill, his wife Barbara Beckwith Dobo, his late brother Robert Ridgely Dobo Sr. and Robert’s late wife Dorothy Gray Dobo.

“Dobo wrote articles for The Seahawk in the early ‘50s, about his life on a ship during the military service,” Hunt said. “In one article Dobo complained about cooking – calling it a ‘women’s job.’ The article really captured the different roles of men and women of the time.”

Dobo passed away last June at the age of 86.

Special Collections holds a different exhibit for a few months once a year. These exhibits share the history of campus in a visual way that students, library staff and members of the community can enjoy together.

“Exhibits such as this underscore the library’s value to the campus, and our value to not only preserving the university’s history, but also making that history come alive,” said Sarah Barbara Watstein, university librarian.

While it is easy for college students to focus on the future, it is also vital that they respect and understand previous generations of the Seahawk Nation.

“After the headlines have gone away and trending tweets have been replaced with new trending tweets, The Seahawk remains an excellent source of history for researchers and students,” Riggins said. “We could not celebrate this 65^th birthday if it were not for archival preservation.”

Friday’s reception and exhibit opening will mark almost exactly 65 years since the first issue of The Seahawk was published on Sept. 27, 1948. Come join The Seahawk staff and witness another moment in Seahawk history.