The Baylor Lariat, the voice for the student body for the past 80 years, was silent. An empty newsroom was echoed only by the fateful last stand of the Feb. 22, 1980, editorial. But in the spring of 1980, the lights went out in the newsroom. Students still went to class, and Fountain Mall still hummed with springtime chatter — but the newsstands remained empty.

Kirk joined The Baylor Lariat on Feb. 1, 1967 — his birthday — just one year before graduating. As The Lariat celebrates its 125th anniversary on Friday, Kirk reminisced on a radically different newsroom, a wooden — military-style structure behind Old Main, perched over Waco Creek.

National Mall thrummed as crowds of a million people bunched together and as camcorders rose in unison hoping for a glimpse of history. With the wave of flags, high hopes and wide smiles, the nation waited to witness the inauguration America’s first Black president — Barack Obama.

What started as an advertisement in The Lariat morphed into Baylor’s own masked vigilante armed with coconut cream pies. For over a decade, the Pie Man turned campus into his bakery of chaos, leaving laughter, whipped cream and bewildered professors in his wake.

To put this monumental celebration in perspective and to celebrate the development of student press over these years, here are 10 important historical developments that succeed the birth of The Lariat.

As diverse as Baylor’s offerings are, though, the academic makeup of the student body is not exactly the intellectual rainbow that the triple-digit number suggests. The palette is probably better described as dozens of thin strips with slightly different shades, sprinkled among a few very wide bands of dominant colors.

Before the Wright brothers took flight or air conditioning cooled a single building, The Baylor Lariat was already in print. 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.

Through all — the good, the bad, the funny and the sad, the Lariat was there. Here are 12 major moments in Lariat history, hand plucked from the archives.

For 125 years, the student newspaper has been more than just a publication. It’s been a place where students learn to juggle multiple roles, push themselves and grow in ways that stick long after graduation.