The Daily Reflector: A Public Voice Lending Private Support
This article describes the development of The Daily Reflector and its relationship with East Carolina University. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Askew, Susan. "The Daily Reflector: A Public Voice Lending Private Support," ECU Report, Fall 1991, Volume 23, No. 1.
David Julian Whichard, "Big Dave" to friends and longtime employees, is the grand old man of newspapering in North Carolina. At 96, now retired, he is the oldest living newspaper editor in the state, having purchased The Daily Reflector from his father, its founder, in 1919.
Whichard has seen his family's newspaper progress from handset type to computer technology.He served as editor and publisher of The Daily Reflector for nearly 60 years, an era which parallels the early growth of East Carolina University.
The Whichard family and The Daily Reflector have supported ECU through each of its important milestones -- from its birth in 1907, to achieving university status in 1967, to gaining a medical school in 1976. The names of David Julian Whichard and his late wife, Virginia Suther Whichard '17, will be remembered at ECU through a distinguished professorship in the humanities established in their honor this fall.
Virginia S. Whichard was a 1917 graduate of the East Carolina Teacher Training School (ECTTS) and taught in Wilmington, Goldsboro and Greenville. After their marriage in 1926, Mrs. Whichard was active in management of the newspaper and an officer and director of the company. She and several of her college classmates remained lifelong friends and attended class reunions and commencements together each spring for many years. She died in 1973.
Their sons, David Jordan Whichard II (Dave) and John Suther Whichard (Jack), joined with other members of the Whichard family to establish the endowment.The gift is ECU's fourth distinguished professorship -- the first in the humanities -- under a state matching program for endowing professorships with a corpus of at least $500,000.
Announcing the gift, ECU Chancellor Richard R. Eakin said, "For many years The Daily Reflector and the Whichard family have been leaders in promoting higher education for people in eastern North Carolina. Big Dave and his family have been good friends of East Carolina since the early years. We deeply appreciate their thoughtfulness and generosity."
The humanities disciplines benefiting from the gift include English, foreign languages and literatures, history and philosophy.
The name of David Julian Whichard already is prominent at ECU, with an administrative building at the main campus entrance named in his honor in 1962. Whichard Building, constructed in 1923, earlier was the college library and later served as the music hall.
In addition, The Daily Reflector has supported a scholarship program at ECU since 1952, providing four full tuition scholarships annually for Pitt County high school graduates.
First Generation: David Jordan Whichard
David Jordan Whichard and his brother, Julian R. Whichard, founded the Eastern Reflector weekly that parented The Daily Reflector. Their interest in newspapers began in 1877 while working at the Greenville Express. At 16, David Jordan Whichard became the youngest editor in the state.
When the Express closed in 1881, the Whichard brothers bought the printing equipment, moved it to their grandmother's schoolhouse on North Pitt Street and started the Eastern Reflector, first published in January, 1882.They worked together until 1885 when David Jordan bought his brother's interest in the paper. In 1894, a year before David Julian Whichard's birth, the Reflector went daily.
As Greenville's population increased, Whichard and his newspaper helped bring about many changes that transformed Greenville into a progressive town.
The first great change came with the railroad in 1891 and continued through 1907.A public school was established, electric service arrived, and Greenville successfully competed against other eastern North Carolina towns to obtain a college.One of Whichard's greatest accomplishments was his work to establish East Carolina Teachers Training School.
From January to July in 1907, articles and editorials in The Daily Reflector encouraged area residents to support the effort.To compete for the school, each town had to bid a minimum of $25,000 in cash and offer a site of at least 25 acres. On July 10, 1907, Greenville was declared the winner with a secured bid of $100,000 in land and money.
Second Generation: Big Dave
David Julian Whichard inherited his father's love for the newspaper business and his interest in continued progress for Greenville.
His first memory of the family newspaper is of the May 4, 1899, fire that destroyed much of the town's business district when he was four.The fire started in a room above Cheek's Bar on Evans Street. A Reflector headline called it "Greenville's Greatest Fire."
Whichard recalls:
"The fire was heading from uptown towards the Reflector building, so my two sisters (Hennie and Essie) and I pitched in to help Poppa move newspaper files and records to our home, about four blocks south of the newspaper office on Evans Street.
"A downtown store owner loaned Poppa a horse and a two-wheeled cart to haul the stuff to our house. The horse, Peggy, got scared from all the noise, bolted, and ran.In the process the cart overturned, scattering the files and records all over the dirt street in front of our house. Bright and early the next morning, Essie, Hennie and I were out in the street picking up the papers. After the commotion died down, Peggy came back."
When Whichard was old enough to attend school, his parents sent him to the only public school in town. Even though the boys and girls usually were separated at school, he was placed in the care of his older sisters and was made to go to recess with the girls.
"I stayed in school like that for two weeks, then I had enough so I quit," Whichard said. His mother insisted that if he didn't attend school, he'd have to go to work with his father.
"So at six years of age, Poppa brought me to the newspaper office and I started out as a copy boy and errand boy.Although I wasn't in school, I was getting an education. I learned to read at home, and then I learned more at the Reflector office, handling the copy," he said.
Whichard held a number of jobs as a young boy. He delivered cotton market reports and sold Turner's Almanac along Evans Street, all the while working odd jobs at the newspaper. In 1903, the year he returned to school as a third grader, he shared a newspaper route with his cousin.
After graduation from the Greenville Graded School in 1913, Whichard took a part-time job at the post office in addition to work at the newspaper, and the following year, he became assistant postmaster. He continued to work at the post office until 1917 when World War I called him into the military.
Whichard was serving with an army ambulance unit in France when he learned of his father's plans to sell the newspaper. He wrote home urging his father to delay the sale until he returned.Upon his return in 1919, he resigned his position at the post office and bought the newspaper from his father.
At 24, David Julian Whichard became owner and publisher of The Daily Reflector. "Competition from another afternoon daily at the time didn't make my task any easier or my prospects any brighter," said Whichard. "Nevertheless, I had cast my lot to make newspapering my life's work."
Hard Times
The Daily Reflector has weathered its share of hard times. Whichard recalls the difficulty of the depression years that began with the Panic of 1907 and continued through the Great Depression of 1929.
Farming losses were detrimental to area businesses, which in turn adversely affected The Daily Reflector with advertising and subscription losses. Whichard recalls exchanging advertising space for goods at local stores, and accepting chickens, eggs and produce from farmers in exchange for subscriptions.
"As for our employees," he said, "we might pay them in goods if they were willing to take them, but they did not have to agree to that. We'd usually sell the remainder of whatever we had and use the cash to pay our employees their wages."
Although the end of the 1929 depression brought about some relief, Whichard recalls that the newspaper business still had problems, brought on by World War II and the manufacture of war materials. The increased need for war goods caused a shortage of the parts needed to keep the newspaper's production equipment running.
"Newspapers, especially smaller ones, did not begin to come into their own until after World War II.Then we began to make some money," said Whichard.
Whichard said that during the 1920s and '30s it was fairly common for a newspaper editor to be threatened with violence.He recalls several incidents which made it necessary to arm himself with "Betsy," his .32 caliber revolver.
Once he was threatened by a man arrested the day before for driving drunk, who didn't want his family to read about the arrest in the newspaper. Another man got angry about an editorial in which the newspaper took issue with the man's effort to sell property to the city for more than the editor felt it was worth.
In each case he adhered to Reflector policy and printed the articles in question, fortunately never having to fire his gun.
Member of the Family
The Daily Reflector policy, as Whichard sees it, was established by his father and uncle when they founded the Eastern Reflector. He says the newspaper was always intended "for the enlightenment of the people" and is "the property of the people who receive it."
"Over the years, I have maintained that making money was not the object of the newspaper. We have always placed emphasis, first, on making improvements in the paper itself -- not to keep up, but to stay ahead of the times," Whichard said.
"Because a newspaper has to adapt to the times, make improvements and be responsive to the needs of its readers, I have always considered it a living instrument -- a member of the family," he said.
In Big Dave's early days as manager, his father helped with editorials and management until he died in 1922. Sisters Essie and Hennie helped with news reporting and managed some aspects of the business.Essie's husband, Sam Bridgers, also was involved in the business.Virginia Whichard was the Reflector bookkeeper for many years and served as secretary to the corporation formed in 1948.
Whichard's sons, Dave and Jack, joined the staff in 1948 and 1950.Both sons spent their boyhood summers working in various parts of the newspaper operation, receiving half of their salaries in cash and the rest in company stock.
When Virginia Whichard died, her sons inherited her stock.Shortly thereafter, David Julian Whichard issued his remaining stock to his sons and became chairman emeritus of the board.Dave and Jack became chairman and vice-chairman respectively of the company.
With 1991 came the fourth generation of management for The Daily Reflector, as D. Jordan Whichard III, great grandson of the founder, became its president and publisher.
Ahead of the Times
David Julian Whichard has seen a revolution in newspaper production, as The Daily Reflector has continued to stay abreast of the latest technology.When he began working at the newspaper, it was typeset manually with moveable type.
Around 1910 the first linotype machine was installed, typesetting 10 lines per minute.By the time Whichard returned from the war, a more efficient, all-electric linotype was in use.
The most significant changes, however, have occurred in the last several decades -- transition to phototypesetting and offset printing in 1969, and replacement of typewriters and teletype machines in the newsroom by a computer system and an Associated Press satellite receiving dish in the early '80s.
In a time when independent dailies are nearing extinction, The Daily Reflector is flourishing. In recent years the entire facility has been remodeled, taking on a newspaper-of-the-future appearance.The newsroom, composing room and pressroom, and photo and circulation departments all have undergone expansion and modernization.But the most visible evolution was earlier this year when the newspaper was converted to morning distribution.
Ties That Bind
Big Dave's sons, Dave and Jack, cite numerous reasons for their family's continuous and vigorous support of East Carolina University.
"Education has been a part of the fabric of our family for at least five or six generations. Even though none of us today are teachers by profession, we have always had a strong interest in education," Dave said.
"Our great grandmother had a one-room schoolhouse in this area.She taught her children and others when there were no public schools.And her father was a teacher. He had a school called Jordan Academy in the Pactolus region -- in an area called Jordan's Plains in the early to mid 1800s," said Jack.
More than for historical reasons, the Whichards say their support is generated because of the influence the university has had on them. "If you are part of this community, you cannot disassociate yourself with East Carolina.If you grow up in Greenville, you grow up with the university," said Dave.
"From our earliest memories, the campus was part of our lives. We walked through the campus to get to the old training school where we went to elementary school. We would stop to drink water at the great old water fountain behind Fleming and Old Austin," Dave recalls.
"And back in the '30s, the campus had the only good sidewalks in town for roller skating. We'd all go to the ECTC campus to roller skate," he said.
"And we were asked to leave more than once," Jack remembers.
Dave Whichard is a former trustee of ECU and former member and vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina. He now serves on the board of trustees of UNC-Chapel Hill. Jack Whichard is a member of the executive committee of the ECU Foundation, Inc.
Big Dave's sons say their father marvels at how much the university has grown through the years, and at its ever-broadening influence.
They see continued growth and expansion in ECU's future, with increasing emphasis on quality of education. "We're already seeing a focus on quality, and I think that will be the real focus in the next few years," Jack said, adding, "The university is trying to get more resources, so they can bring in better and better staff and faculty, which is the cornerstone for this quality."
"This is a time when public institutions cannot rely altogether on public funds.Going into the next century, private support will become more and more important in achieving the university's goals," Dave said.
Editor's Note: The writer acknowledges the following references in preparing this article: East Carolina University: The Formative Years, 1907-1982 by Dr. Mary Jo Jackson Bratton, ECU history professor, published in 1986 by the East Carolina University Alumni Association; and Big Dave Remembers: The Daily Reflector, a master's thesis by Patricia M. Moore '84 presented in July, 1984.
Timeline
1880: Greenville population: 912
1882: Eastern Reflector founded by Whichard brothers David Jordan and Julian R.
1885: David Jordan Whichard becomes Eastern Reflector owner
1889: Railroad comes to Greenville
1890: Greenville population: 1,937
1894: Daily Reflector established
1895: David Julian Whichard is born
1896: Telephone service comes to Greenville
1899: Evans Street business district fire
1900: Greenville population: 2,565
1901: David Julian Whichard quits school
1903: David Julian Whichard returns to school
1905: Greenville gets night-time electricity
1906: Greenville gets 24-hour electricity
1907: ECTTS established; Panic of 1907
1909: Daily Reflector installs linotype
1913: David Julian Whichard graduates, enters postal service
1917: David Julian Whichard joins military; Virginia Suther graduates from ECTTS
1919: David Julian Whichard buys Daily Reflector; Daily Reflector elebrates 25th anniversary
1922: David Jordan Whichard dies
1923: Whichard Building constructed at ECTC
1926: David Julian Whichard marries Virginia Suther
1948: Dave Whichard joins family business; Daily Reflector incorporates
1950: Jack Whichard joins family business
1952: Daily Reflector establishes scholarship
1962: Whichard Building dedication
1967: East Carolina achieves university status
1969: Daily Reflector converts to phototypesetting and offset printing
1973: Virginia S. Whichard dies
1976: ECU gains medical school
1980: Daily Reflector is computerized
1981: Daily Reflector gets AP satellite receiver
1990: Greenville population: 44,972
1991: David Jordan Whichard III becomes Daily Reflector president and publisher;
Daily Reflector goes morning; Whichard family establishes distinguished professorship
