Terry Nelson

Exactly 25 years ago, Terry Nelson was fired as a teacher and student media adviser at Yorktown (Ind.) High School after clashes with school administrators over freedom of the press issues.  She was rehired a month later after the school realized it had overstepped its bounds. 

Twelve years later, she was elected to the same school board that had ousted her.  Now the journalism teacher and adviser at Muncie (Ind.) Central High School, she remains a symbol of freedom of the press for scholastic newspapers nationwide.

Terry Nelson manufactures young journalists and responsible citizens from her second-floor classroom at Muncie Central High School.

In the same tradition of the jar makers, the steel fabricators, and the transmission assemblers that put industrial Muncie on the map in the last century, the 51-year-old high journalism teacher and adviser shapes and tunes young minds and hearts to inform the school community and carry forward the civic tradition of the First Amendment.

It is a vocation she has pursued year-in, year-out for the past 29 years, the last 13 at the sprawling school on the White River near downtown. She has guided hundreds of writers and editors, young citizens ready to take on the world. She has been in the public eye often – and her clip file at the Muncie Star Press is choked with yellowing, brittle remembrances of courageous battles she has fought to keep the student press free and alive.

She has been honored like few practitioners in the scholastic newspaper industry: Dow Jones Newspaper Fund National Journalism Teacher of the Year, USA Today’s All USA Teacher, First Team, among others. She also has been fired and rehired, taunted and ridiculed by administrators and parents.

“A good journalism teacher realizes the importance and potential impact that journalists have on the world,” said Nelson. “Besides parenthood, teaching’s the most important job in the world.”

“Terry Nelson is a pillar of scholastic journalism,” said Randy Swikle, an Illinois colleague who has watched Nelson grow in stature these many years. “Her sense of ethics stirs the conscience of the community, causing people to deal with the truth. Her professionalism advances the highest goals of teaching in journalism.”

Dennis Cripe, the executive director of the Indiana High School Press Association and former high school journalism teacher himself, said of Nelson: “When our group thinks of freedom, we think of Terry. Through Terry, we’ve learned that freedom is the foundation of all the creative activities in scholastic journalism.”

The year 2004 has been a good year for Terry Nelson. It began with a decision to pursue and publish a difficult and wrenching story in the school’s paper, which led to a major award. It ends with the 25-year-old memories of a publishing scandal that threatened to drive Nelson from teaching long before she had a chance to make an impact. That ordeal launched her into the national spotlight.

Last spring, the staff of her newspaper, the Munsonian, received one of scholastic journalism’s top honors, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Sullivan Award, for its coverage of transgressions of a former Hall-of-Fame basketball coach at Muncie Central. The award was established to honor student journalists who have fought for their right to speak their minds while in the pursuit of truth.

“She is like a great general who inspires by connecting with students at their own level,” said student John Seidel in 2000, when Nelson was honored by USA Today.

Nelson was born in Muncie, one of six children of Paul Edward and Elaine Thrash. Terry’s family lived in the Muncie/Gary/Detroit axis during her formative years. It was a close family, and when her dad died at 77 of a smoking-related heart aneurysm in 2001, Terry was inspired to write a tribute in the Star Press: “Death came prematurely to this man because of a nasty little habit he picked up in junior high school … I miss Paul Edward. I still have his Chi Chi Rodriguez straw golf hat hanging on my black iron coat tree in the front hallway.”

At an early age, Nelson caught the journalism bug. In a 2002 article, Nelson recalled her early forays into journalism: “I had always wanted to be a journalist since the time of the Beatles’ invasion of America,” she said. Nelson produced a handwritten newsletter about “Beatlemania” when she was 12.

Although teaching has dominated her life, Nelson was bound for newspapers in 1973. She married her high school sweetheart, moved with him to Mississippi and took a daily newsroom job in Biloxi. “My original intent was to be the first female editor of the Chicago Tribune. I never wanted to be a teacher,” she said.

But upon returning to Muncie a year later, she opted for the prospect of better and shorter hours and became a teacher at Yorktown High School. She quickly became immersed in the work, teaching and advising in the journalism area, and also overseeing speech and drama (something she does to this day at Muncie Central).

Five years and two babies (Matt, 27; and Annie, 24) later, Nelson, only 26 and not protected by job tenure, became the center of a firestorm in the Mount Pleasant Community Schools district. It was May 1979.

In the student newspaper, Nelson made the decision to protect the identity of a letter-writer who was critical of the school administration. According to Star-Press reports at the time, Nelson was harassed by principal James Laws because of her decision to not name the offending letter-writer.

The school board backed Laws, dismissing Nelson on a 3-1 vote on May 29.

But the decision didn’t last. Nelson filed a $65,000 suit in Federal District against the school, seeking reinstatement and attempting to prevent Laws from interfering with the operation of the student press. Students rallied in support of her, risking suspension. Journalism educators and residents spoke out on her behalf.

The board reversed itself a month later, rehiring Nelson and negotiating a settlement with the young teacher who agreed to drop the suit. But the board reaffirmed the policy of a free student press.

“Terry Nelson is the kind of adviser every student of journalism wishes he had,” said Rich Holden, executive director of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund. “Her stance is clear and firm – she stands on the students’ rights under the First Amendment.”

Her courage shone through again last winter, when her Munsonian staff pushed ahead in publishing a story after revelations that the Muncie Central basketball coach was paying his players to play. Nelson’s students endured efforts to censor the story, change quotes, not to mention threats and innuendo, en route to press.

While censorship, obviously, is still a very real issue, Nelson cited another issue as the biggest obstacle facing a free student press today.

“With all the attention placed on education today, (it’s) the no-child-left-behind policy and all the concern about core requirements,” said Nelson of the nationwide move by educators to narrow curricula around certain core courses such as math and science at the expense of other courses, including art, music and journalism. She said that fewer college-bound students have time for electives, and “that is driving down the number of kids who can go into publications.”

Nelson said that state-by-state education reform is needed to place journalism where it belongs – smack-dab in the middle of the core curriculum.

The national political climate also presents problems for journalism teachers and advisers, said Nelson. “We’re in an era of fear – (from) 9-11, the aftermath of that. When there is fear, there seems to be more of a need for control. From principals to advisers to students, there is often a hesitancy to tackle the truth or fear that truth will offend someone.”

The pursuit of truth, however, remains at the foundation of journalism education, she said. “Talking about these things makes you a healthier school,” said Nelson. “Journalism builds community.”