Stacy Wynn remembers 27 years with the DTH

Stacy Wynn, better known as Staceman in the office of The Daily Tar Heel, has been the editorial production manager at the newspaper since 1984.

One of the seven members of the newspaper’s professional staff, Wynn has seen his job adapt as the college media industry has evolved.

As the DTH celebrates its 119th birthday today, Staceman, 57, reflected on his time with the newspaper.

Daily Tar Heel: How did you get the nickname Staceman?

Stacy Wynn: It’s something from high school. Back in the good old drug days of the sixties and seventies, I was “the Staceman from outer Stace.”

DTH: You have become a DTH icon over the years. Do you view yourself that way?

SW: Not really. I think I am just the person who is able to say, “I remember when…”

DTH: What is the starkest difference you have observed in The Daily Tar Heel now compared to when you got started?

SW: It would have to be the method with which we do production. We have gone from cutting and pasting and one person typing all of the stories in for an entire desk. You never actually saw what the whole thing would look like.

The biggest difference is that the students now get to actually see what they are doing. It’s so much more of a hands-on process for the students than it was.

DTH: How have the advances in technology affected the quality of the DTH?

SW: Oh, it advanced it enormously. Now of course we have so much color, it’s wonderful. Designs are our designs. Any kind of artistic work was all hand drawn.

All of the computer enhancements that we are currently working with are wonderful, as well as the quality of the production at our press.

DTH: Were you sad when the DTH office moved off campus, away from all the history, to Rosemary Street?

SW: I was sad, as you said, to lose the history, but I was not sad to lose the space. The space we have here is absolutely wonderful. I am very happy that it has not decreased the number of students that are willing to come this far to work here.

We have more room to put more computers, more working spaces. We’re right off Franklin Street so we don’t have to go very far to get more news when big events happen.

The converse of that is that we are not in the middle of campus. We just don’t have as many of “our” students strolling through the middle of campus picking up news as hearsay on their way to work. So it is a sweet and difficult transition.

DTH: Do old students ever come back to visit?

SW: Yes they do, thank heavens. It is wonderful. We just had one today who just came from her job at ESPN, and we had a couple that came in over the weekend.

Especially on alumni weekend, football and basketball games, they just drop by out of the blue and it is magnificent. And there are three alumni I see every day because I work with them.

DTH: Today we’re celebrating the DTH’s 119th birthday. What does it mean to you to be part of the paper?

SW: First of all, UNC is lucky enough to get the top students and we are privileged to have the best of them working for us at one of the best college newspapers.

DTH: Do you have any memories from your time with the DTH that stand out?

SW: Several. One that did directly affect us, because it was at night, was a bomb scare. We were in the Union. Police were all over the place with shotguns. We were demanded that we get out of the Union. But what we did is we went across the street and sat on the wall and produced a newspaper. And as soon as we were allowed back in, which we had to plead for, we got in there, fired everything up and put out a paper and got it out on time.

Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.