Davis, Wayne P.

Description

Contact Stephen Bloom at The University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication: stephen-g-bloom@uiowa.edu Files were originally captured on DV tape, then transcoded into WMV format. Streamed clips are of FLV format sized 400x300 pixels. Section 1: A: I was born in 1920 in Philipsburg, Missouri. When I was about four my parents moved to Nacogdoches, Texas. And anyone who can spell that is doing good. My father was a college professor in a teachers’ college. The teachers’ college ran a training school for teachers all year round. So since my father was teaching all year round, I went to school all year round. That’s fine except for fact that I was 14 when I graduated from high school. When I went into my freshman class at Steven F. Austin state teachers’ college, the yearbook came out that year with my name and they had me as Wayne P. Davis, “Diapers.” It was a cross to bear. The reason I went to Nacogdoches for my first year of college was that the school I wanted to go to wouldn’t let me go until I was 16. So I finished my bachelor’s degree in 1939, at Principia College across the river from St. Louis in Illinois. I worked a year as an intern at the Nacogdoches weekly newspaper called the Redlind Herald. It was an eye-opening experience. First of all, I should say that I can’t think of anytime in my life that I ever wanted to do anything but...