Sept. 2-4

MANHATTAN -- The A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University is having its centennial celebration Sept. 2-4.

The celebration kicks off with the 11th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 2, in Forum Hall in the K-State Student Union. Gail Pennybacker, an award-winning journalist at ABC7/WJLA-TV in Arlington, Va., and a 1981 K-State journalism and mass communications graduate, will present "Local News: Why it Will Always be Critical Coverage." The lecture is open to the public.

Since joining WJLA-TV in 1986, Pennybacker has covered many of the top news stories of the day, including the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Beltway sniper shootings and the Marv Albert assault charges. She also reported from the Persian Gulf during the war with Iraq.

The lecture is sponsored by the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media.

As part of the centennial celebration, a memorabilia room will be open to the public from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 3 in the Union's Cottonwood Room. The event will showcase materials relating to each of the program's 10 decades. Materials will include letters from alumni, event programs, old newspapers, Royal Purple yearbooks, photos and other items.

A panel of photojournalists, all former K-Staters and many former K-State Collegian and Royal Purple photographers, will present their work at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 2 in the Union's Forum Hall. The panel discussion is open to the public.

Other events will include alumni workshops with current students, a banquet and silent auction, a night in Aggieville, campus tours and a tailgate party before the K-State-UCLA football game.

In conjunction with centennial events, the department will be raising money for the Dave MacFarland Tools for Tomorrow Technology Fund. The fund was established in 2008 to honor MacFarland on his retirement from the journalism and mass communications' faculty. MacFarland believes that students and faculty need current technology to excel in their work. The goal of the campaign is to raise $100,000 for the program's 100 years. The money will be used to buy cameras, computers, convergence software and other technology tools.

A formal journalism curriculum began at K-State in 1910 when Charles J. Dillon from the Kansas City Star was hired to teach reportorial work and establish an industrial journalism program separate from printing. Students were required to concurrently study one of the industrial arts -- agriculture, home economics or engineering -- with their journalism classes.