The Chart (newspaper) - History

History

As a student at Missouri Southern’s predecessor Joplin Junior College, Kenneth McCaleb (1920-2002) saw a need for a student newspaper. In the fall of 1939, the first issue of The Chart appeared on the school’s campus. McCaleb had chosen the name The Chart to serve as a scale to measure the school’s success, having only been founded in 1937.

In its early years, The Chart had numerous faculty members serve as advisers to it and it fell under the jurisdiction of the English department. In 1948, Cleetis Headlee (1911-2000), professor of English and journalism, took the position as faculty adviser of the newspaper. It was during her tenure that the publication went on to win its first statewide awards. Headlee, known as being a stickler for accuracy, served in that role for 19 years, before stepping down in 1967, though she continued serving as an English professor at the college until retiring in 1976.

After Headlee’s departure as adviser, the quality and funding for The Chart degraded significantly. But the 1972 arrival of Richard Massa (1932-) to serve as adviser brought the newspaper new life. Massa used his early time as adviser to rebuild the staff and work on securing adequate funding. Through his leadership, the student staff was bringing in major awards within just a few years. Massa used the success of The Chart as seed for a new college department and in 1980 the department of communications was created, with Massa serving as director, a title he held until his retirement in 1999.

As Massa’s duties increased with the new department, he hired a former Chart editor-in-chief to replace him as adviser. Chad Stebbins, who graduated from Missouri Southern in 1982, took on the role as adviser in 1984 and continued the legacy of success that had been instilled by Headlee and Massa before him. Under his watch, The Chart twice won the Society of Professional Journalists’ best in the nation award for a non-daily college newspaper. In 1999, the College Media Advisers named Stebbins the National Newspaper Adviser of the Year. Stebbins' close watch of The Chart continued until 1999, when he was promoted to be director of the university's Institute of International Studies. Since that time, while Stebbins still retains the title of adviser, the role of publications manager has handled most of the day-to-day management of the student staff. Since 2006 T.R. Hanrahan, another former Chart editor-in-chief, has served in that position.