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Articles There's no I in Team: MC alum Wilber lives the expression 2011 - By Kari Williams 
All his life, Bob Wilber, a 1978 SIUE Mass Communications graduate, has been a team-oriented person, and working toward a common goal—winning or losing as a team—is what he loves about drag racing.
Wilber saw his first drag race in 1991 as the general manager of a racetrack in Topeka, Kan. He is now closing in on 15 years of involvement with the National Hot Rod Association.
“I was never a gear head. I built model cars when I was a kid, and that was about the most I knew about cars,” Wilber said.
Wilber currently lives in Wisconsin, and, since he left Kansas, he has worked for various drag racing teams doing public relations, been the general manager for the indoor soccer franchise the Kansas City Attack and worked as the team manager for Del Worsham and Tim Wilkerson’s NHRA funny car teams.
An author's 'dream' deferred is realized 2011 - By Kari Williams 
Twenty
years after penning the book, SIUE mass communications
alumna Cathey Newhouse has self-published “The Dream
Mystery.”
The book is a teen mystery about searching for buried
treasure. The main character Elizabeth Cox finds papers
from her uncle about buried treasure, and Elizabeth and
her friends are determined to solve the mystery.
“I put it up and went to school, and graduated and all
that. And now we’re here,” Newhouse said. “It was that
simple. I just sat down and started writing, which is
kind of the way I just do it. Get a thought and go with
it.” 
READ MORE
Message
from the Director 2011
- By Dr. Gary Hicks 
Dear
Alumni and Friends of the Department of Mass
Communications, I am extraordinarily happy to be able to
begin this, my second column for the Mass Communicator
as department chair, with the news that the Accrediting
Council on Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication has unanimously approved our department
for full re-accreditation. Re-accreditation occurs every
six years and entails a massive amount of work on the
part of the department’s staff and faculty. The first
major step is the creation of a self-study by the
department, followed by a visit to the department by a
site team of mass communications academics and
professionals. Recommendations are given and votes taken
at two levels within the accrediting body. The result:
SIUE’s Department of Mass Communications retains its
place among the 113 mass communications and journalism
programs worldwide (only one of five in Illinois) to be
accredited. READ MORE
Shotgun graduates, but have a
solid foundation By Mark Motley
President, Mass Communications Alumni Board
VP Communications at the Simmons Law Firm
mmotley@simmonsfirm.com
We mass communications graduates
are a funny breed.
Not quite so prudent as our fellow classmates who chose
the business school’s marketing or speech communications
programs, yet sensible enough to have not majored in
English (most of us only minored, of course), mass
communications graduates occupy a unique space of
professional real estate.
It’s a neighborhood nestled somewhere between political
science — with its straight lines and neatly manicured
lawns — and the theatre department, who, much to the
city’s chagrin, simply pitch a tent and refuse to build.READ MORE
SIUE alumni prove a mass
comm education applies in many fields 2011 - By Aren Dow & Kellen Ozanich
(Scroll over the pictures to read the cutlines)Recycling advertising skills
SIUE alumnus Chad Hurley graduated in 2000 with no
intention of finding a job in mass communications. While
he was an undergraduate, he worked at a local refinery
south of campus in Alton, Ill. It was there that
he developed an idea for a recycling business that
salvages metal.
“How it all got started was the idea of opening it up to
the public,” Hurley said.
He said he came to SIUE because he was low on funds, but
knew he needed a college education. He graduated with a
business major and his minor study was in mass
communications. READ MORE
‘In a world where…’: SIUE graduates win Emmy award 2011 - By Aren DowFormer
SIUE students were honored with a Mid-American Emmy
Award in October 2010 for their work on the movie
trailer spoof “Academic Integrity” that includes a
voiceover from voiceover great Don LaFontaine.
The trailer was created in a summer 2008 independent
study class with Mass Communications professor Cory
Byers. Brent Roth, Alex Trepka and Preston Gibson
—dubbed the “Crafty Batch”—alongside Rebecca Mead and
Kyle West won in the student production, non-news
category, where they were up against two groups from the
University of Arkansas. READ MORE