By Hannah Webb | Focus Editor
Before the Wright brothers took flight or air conditioning cooled a single building, The Baylor Lariat was already in print. It was born into a world where newsprint was typeset by hand and the hum of a newsroom came from clattering typebars, not computer keys. Now, 125 years and roughly 12,250 issues later, Baylor’s student-run newspaper continues to tell the university’s story with the same curiosity and conviction that first inked its pages in 1900.
The debut issue of “The ‘Varsity Lariat,” published Nov. 8, 1900, boasted just $1 for a year’s subscription. It featured a poem to Maggie Houston, a football recap of Baylor’s 11–0 victory over Austin College and a column titled “Anent the Lariat,” which set the tone for every issue to follow: “The Lariat shall strive to be a true exponent of Baylor University life.”
From that promise grew a publication that has witnessed and withstood more than a century of history. Its pages have outlasted two world wars, the rise of radio and television, the invention of the internet and the shift from hot metal type to digital screens. It chronicled the Branch Davidian siege, the 2013 explosion in West and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has told stories of championship wins, campus controversies and national reckonings. Through it all, The Lariat has remained what alumnus Nick Dean called “a first draft of history for what is happening on this campus.”
Dean, who served as editor-in-chief in 2012, remembers long nights in the newsroom — and the lessons that stuck.
“I remember being in the newsroom and having to figure out how to cover this while also emotionally processing,” he said. “We were all so proud that our name was on everything. What we put in the paper could impact people.”
For Fred Hartman Distinguished Professor Sommer Dean (’10), who started at The Lariat before becoming a media law attorney and teaching journalism at Baylor, the newsroom was where everything clicked.
“This sounds dramatic, but The Lariat honestly changed my life,” she said. “It’s where I learned to make a difference through words, through truth-telling and truth-seeking.”
Her office now sits just across the hall from the newsroom where it all began.
“I’ll hear groups of students in there laughing and telling stories, and it feels the same,” she said. “The goal of The Lariat, and all student journalists, should be to seek the truth and tell it — whether your school likes it or not.”
That truth-telling spirit isn’t new. Former Editor-in-Chief Dawn McMullan (’88) remembers how her staff, consisting of a mix of wide-eyed college students, worked through trial and error.
“It was a bunch of like 20, 21, 19-year-olds trying to work collaboratively,” McMullan said. “We were all learning how to work together as a team. I think that’s the beauty of it — and the challenge.”
She recalled the boldness of youth.
“I just had this naive thought that we could do anything we wanted; no matter what, we didn’t have limitations,” McMullan said. “There are things that student journalists write that start movements.”
That combination of courage and collaboration has carried Baylor Student Media far beyond campus. Collectively, The Lariat, Roundup yearbook, Lariat TV News and Focus magazine have won thousands of local, state and national awards, including multiple top honors from the Associated Collegiate Press and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. The accolades aren’t just plaques on the wall — they’re proof of a tradition of excellence built issue by issue, story by story.
After a decade in media law, Sommer Dean said returning to Baylor felt like “coming home.”
“I love working with young journalists and just seeing the fire you all have,” she said. “It inspires me. Coming back to Baylor was an easy choice.”
Through every shift in technology — from linotypes to livestreams, and typewriters to browser tabs — The Baylor Lariat has adapted without losing its voice. It now operates across print, digital, podcast and broadcast platforms, with students producing breaking news, feature stories, broadcast segments and more. Yet at its core, the mission remains the same: to represent the Baylor community.
In 1900, The Lariat was born out of necessity — “a weekly publication demanded from within and out.” In 2025, that necessity endures. The medium may evolve, but the message doesn’t: The Baylor Lariat is always there — on the stands, online and in the lives of those who make it, chasing truth for the next 125 years and presenting news written “for the students, by the students.”
