By Amanda Purser
Cameron University’s student-led newspaper, the Collegian, began reporting on campus in 1926, and we get the distinct pleasure of celebrating a century of Aggie news this year, in 2026.
Newspapers are a special type of media, preserving moments in time and serving as a tangible piece of history for any area of coverage. The Collegian has been in publication across campus, supposedly never missing a semester since its launch, reporting through wars, historical events and unprecedented occurrences like the COVID-19 pandemic.
This near-constant coverage is no small feat for the countless journalists over the past 100 years who have acted as the gatekeepers of information, reporting the facts and ensuring balanced and unbiased coverage is always maintained with ethical professionalism. Those journalists have been led by various faculty members over the years; their role is to guide and assist the students in a variety of ways, always allowing the creative freedom and content decisions to remain with the editors who have final approval of what the Collegian publishes.
Dr. Christopher Keller is a former Collegian Faculty Adviser from 2001 to 2013, with a sabbatical from 2003-2004 spent at Fort Sill as an instructional designer and educational psychologist for his Ph.D., who understands the importance this unique role plays for the publication.
“We’re a public university, which means our newspaper is a first-amendment-protected product, and while it’s published under the auspice of a faculty adviser, there is no prior restraint to control the content of that paper. It’s produced completely by students for students,” Keller said.
A Cameron alum, having graduated here in 1997, Keller has many ties to campus and even met his wife in a 1995 16th Century British Literature course, so his personal ties and commitment to the Aggie family run deep.
Keller was at the helm of the Collegian through a pivotal moment in the paper’s history and had a hand in some major changes that supported the evolution of not just the print media on campus, but all future journalism at Cameron.
The current Eugene D. McMahon newsroom the Collegian operates out of weekly, was built in the newly restructured Academic Commons, after Dr. John McArthur, then Vice President of Academic Affairs, and soon to be 17th Cameron University President, had acquired a grant for the upgrade on campus. The construction project was announced on April 1, 2011, according to a former Collegian article published on April 4, 2011, from Volume 85, Issue 17.
Keller recalls his managing editor, Jim Horinek, from that timeframe when he was assisting McArthur in the converging media program plans across campus and building AggieCentral from the ground up, to house our university’s digital media, the site still used today.
Keller enjoys watching students move on from Cameron media and technology programs, especially those he was able to work with during his tenure at the Collegian as they embark on their professional journeys.
“Not everybody goes into journalism,” Keller said, “but that skill set that you learn as an editor, managing people and content, working on deadlines, being both creative and task-oriented, it suits people well for any profession that they want to go into.”
Keller took over for Dr. Donna Evers stepping into the adviser role in 2001, and he immediately set out to put his Ph.D. in technology to use by ensuring that the journalism and media students were utilizing and learning about every new tool and technological opportunity available, to make their lives easier, while executing the mission of the Collegian, to seek truth across campus and report it.
“So, my goal was to maintain the excellence that Dr. Evers showed me as my advisor and what I knew about professional journalism,” Keller said, “and then to also make sure that my students were as well-equipped with the literacy knowledge regarding the media we were producing, and the technology that we were utilizing. And that we were making it to where our students could go and get immediate employment and were trained in both the ethics and the process of our craft.”
Cameron students cover a wide variety of content from campus firsts, comical issues such as missing mascot attire when they briefly lost Ole Kim years ago, to more serious events on a local and global scale.
“There is not a better source of Cameron University history — the small things that happen, that are big to us, but not to the world — there is not a better historical reference than what we do with the Collegian,” Keller said.
Cameron’s physical archived records go back to 1927, which is kept in a room dedicated to campus history, housed in the Eugene D. McMahon Library. While some dates were misprinted over the years and the very first issue published is not on record, we maintain the year passed down from our editorial predecessors and campus documents, and honor 1926 as the Collegian’s inception.
Library Specialist and Archivist Kimberly Jackson is currently responsible for maintaining this important room and keeping this roadmap to the past intact for future Aggie generations to come.
“There is so much history; I had no idea that Cameron actually started off as an Agricultural school for High School students,” Jackson said. “Some of the yearbooks that we have actually go back to like 1914, for the High School, so it’s fascinating to see the history and how its evolved.”
Jackson provided Collegian Historical Editor Elaina Benke access to the oldest physical copies of the publication, to examine and document in digital formats to help bring these ancient chronicles back to life for today’s readers to enjoy.
“I’m interested in working on the Centennial Tribute page because it’s important to not only see how far we’ve come, but also to acknowledge the history, so our future can be brighter and better,” Benke said.
In an effort to pay homage to our humble beginnings, some of the oldest Collegian issues will be featured on page 6, for a peek into the past. Benke will continue to highlight issues from our archives on our Centennial Tribute for the remainder of this semester (volume 114). Page 6 will showcase some of the historical headlines and events covered over the last century on campus, as well as illustrate the writing and layout and design evolution.
Benke said, “I think it’s amazing that the paper is not only turning 100, but through that time it’s had a lasting impact on student bodies at Cameron.”
Leaving his position as a Senior English teacher at Lawton High School, Associate Professor David Bublitz, another alum, took on the role as Collegian Faculty Adviser, relieving Keller in 2013.
“I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to return to campus and the publication, serve students in the journalism program and put in work as a fierce advocate for student media and the first amendment,” Bublitz said.
As a Cameron student, Bublitz worked as a Collegian editor, so he understands the requirements and expectations from the staff, which provides insight into the necessary guidance an adviser should convey.
“Dr. Keller was my faculty adviser when I was a student journalist,” Bublitz said, “so, in a way I inherited this position from him, and it was a great opportunity to pay forward in service the knowledge and experience I received from him.”
Bublitz has kept the publication going strong and ensured that the paper remained entered into several media organizations to compete against similar publications across the state.
One organization, the Oklahoma Press Association has the Better Newspaper contest, from which the Collegian has taken home a staggering 100 plus awards, since 2012, on top of the additional recognition when the Collegian was a part of the Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association.
Among this elite recognition are the highly coveted Sequoyah Awards, of which the Collegian won in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024. The Sequoyah is the highest honor an Oklahoma newspaper can receive and to compete against all other colleges across the state and bring home that title to share with the Aggie family is incredibly special for the journalists involved in the Collegian’s time-honored responsibility of seeking truth and reporting it, along with the preservation of history on campus.
We thank you for being a valued reader and supporter of the Collegian, and hope that you continue to enjoy one of our university’s oldest and longest running media outlets on campus, as always, for students, by students.