Dave Cosgrove

By Dennis Joyce

Editorial Page Editor

Arizona Daily Star

For more than 30 years, journalism teacher (John David) Dave Cosgrove has helped hundreds of young people learn that the most rewarding life is one that’s lived on a mission.

Many of those young people are now old. They work in every area of journalism — writing, photography, editing, design — and some are artists, doctors, lawyers, priests and entrepreneurs, as well.

Some are actually retired.

Yet Cosgrove is still there, inspiring new generations of students to think critically, challenge authority, and throw themselves into something — be it career, family or community.

His forum today is the same as it was when he came as a Carmelite brother to Tucson’s only Catholic high school as the sixties turned to the seventies. His skills were in printing, unless you count how well he knew his way around a coop full of egg-laying hens.

The ways of religious orders are many and varied.

He taught himself journalism. He holds no degree in the field. But it didn’t come hard to a closet revolutionary like Cosgrove. His early staffs were journalists in the tradition of John Peter Zenger and Tom Payne: They not only sacrificed greatly to answer their calling, they ran the presses, too.

In his time at Salpointe, Dave left the Carmelites but stayed at Salpointe. And his newspaper and yearbook — The Crusader and Horizons — are consistently among the best locally, statewide and across the nation. There are simply no awards left for them to win. The walls of the large publications classroom are filled to the ceiling with national and state awards. Storage boxes are stuffed with awards from bygone years.

And this doesn’t count his work as a leader and a resource, teaching students throughout the region through the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association. Nor does it count the host of publications that Salpointe has produced on the side — from professional quality literary magazines, to separate newspapers with a conservative bent (long before Fox News) to football and basketball programs that would do pro sports teams proud.

Cosgrove was a champion of niche publications long before the industry saw their full potential.

He is one of those rare teachers who lights a fire in his students that will burn long and bright. Leave to others the rigid emphasis on proper syntax, middle initials and the five Ws and H. Features editor Colleen Heild, who became the Albuquerque Journal's first and only female investigative reporter, does remember Dave as the best editor she’s had in some two decades in the business. She keeps notes he wrote on her stories.

But there is an even more enduring lesson: Dave is the one who shows young people, for perhaps the first time in their lives, that they have the capacity to change the world.

He does it by empowering them, to the chagrin of more principals and people in authority that I can count.

No one studies under Dave, or works for him. You might work with him. But more precisely, you seize the opportunities he points out to you.

Or you don’t. Not every year brings a new crop of budding journalists ready to right wrongs, comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. The student body at Salpointe, for example, has evolved into a pretty comfortable group economically speaking compared with the Vietnam era of Dave’s early days, back when most teachers wore sandals and rap meant sitting in a circle to talk revolution.

But one of Dave’s talents as a teacher is to learn what each class, each student needs to succeed. The shyest sophomore made a fortune in ad sales with a little help from Dave. The most confident student leader learned to understand other points of view during late-night “devil’s advocate” debates with this mentor.

And revolution, I’m happy to say, is still part of the curriculum. Dave challenges every new group to become professional challengers. There is no subject Crusader staffs have shrunk from through the years. They have provided insight and depth on campus issues like drugs and sex as well as broader issues like abortion, the plight of farm workers and the homeless, and even an attempt to recall a governor.

There was at least one issue the paper did back away from, and it goes to the heart of Dave’s greatest value as a teacher. I know about it because I was in charge.

In the early 1970s, a few college students here and there took to shedding their clothes and dashing across campus in a show of — well, I don’t remember what. High school students, at least three of them at Salpointe, followed suit.

The staff of the Crusader, my staff, prepared stories and editorials only to learn that the principal had forbidden any mention of the pastime. Even the word streaking was not to appear in our pages.

We were outraged. We decided to cease publication in protest. A special student-faculty-administration committee was established to explore the protest. AP called. Weeks passed with no Crusader.

Through all the hubbub, Cosgrove acted as adviser only. He pointed things out on occasion, but perhaps the most significant decision any of us had faced in our academic lives was left for us to make.

Looking back, it was a dumb decision. The real answer is to keep exercising every freedom you have, even if a piece of one is taken away, or risk losing them all. I learned this the hard way working with Dave.

Another lesson from this episode, repeated often on the publications staffs, is about that power to change the world — through the press. It might have been a heck of a touchdown run last Friday night, but it’s a thriller in the halls all over again when a Crusader photographer captures the moment. The points of view the debate team might argue in competition are lifted from the realm of the abstract into “call-you-into-the principal’s office” reality when they appear in print.

In pursuit of these lessons, Cosgrove was known to show mood swings from tyrant to teddy bear — more toward teddy bear now that he’s in his 60s. But looking back, they seem calculated rather than capricious. And his wisdom at knowing how much responsibility a student could handle, pushing him or her just far enough to impart lasting lessons, is one reason he is regarded with such reverence and love.

That and the fact he spent so much time with us.

"It was nothing for us to start after school and be here till one or two

o'clock in the morning,” he recalled in a 1998 interview with the Tucson Citizen. “It was not unusual for us to put papers in the racks, shower, and come back to school. We did things together. We had a mission to inform students at the school, tackle the issues and do our best to make people be better."

He gives young people greater trust and freedom at a younger age than anyone I have known. It gets him into trouble. I know there have been teachers and parents who plain don’t like him.

But in the process he teaches rock solid, basic tenets — the public's

right to know, don’t stop until you get the story, cover all sides of the issue.

He has high expectations, but he makes his students believe they can attain them, reporter Heild recalled. Even though they’re in high school, many of these students are more serious about the profession than some professionals you’ll find.

That brings to mind the time a college journalism professor yanked his son out of the Crusader office in anger because the boy had been working so late trying to meet a deadline.

The poor lad was mightily embarrassed. But he was on his way to learning lessons in ownership and responsibility — lessons that stick with all who remain on the mission Cosgrove helped open to us.

And other students wrote:

from Jeff Sklar

Class of 2000

Former editor in chief: The Crusader newsmagazine, Horizons yearbook, Reflections literary magazine

Dave Cosgrove’s influence as a leader, a teacher and a journalist has shaped my life more profoundly than anybody outside my family. Sure, he teaches journalism as well as anybody in the country. But more importantly, he taught me that critical thinking, hard work, and selfless intentions pay great dividends, no matter the endeavor.

Mr. Cosgrove worked us hard. But he never gave any less than he expected from us. When I caused a computer error that forced us to work until 2 a.m. one production night, he didn’t complain about staying late. He let us work the problem out on our own. We had a responsibility to finish the newspaper that night, and he made sure we followed through. And when our publications won some of the nation’s most prestigious high school journalism awards, he never took an ounce of credit, even though we all knew it never would have happened without him.

from Krissy Creager '03

Editor in Chief of The Crusader 2002-03

Mentors come in all shapes and sizes, and well, Coz has to be the smallest (in
stature) but the biggest (in heart, and well other ways) that I have had the
pleasure to be associated with. Though I was only on staff for two years, Coz
had a tremendous influence on my life on an academic and personal levels.
Because of him, I am currently on pace to become a journalism teacher upon
graduation from Northern Arizona University. The leadership and organization
skills, as well as patience that I learned in two years with Coz, in addition
to the memory of sore abs from hours upon hours of laughter will remain with
me for the rest of my life. Coz is a former teacher, close friend, confidant,
and someone I will never forget and I am so grateful that he is being honored.

A PEER WRITES:

from Peggy Gregory

AIPA President

As a young adviser, I was in awe of Dave Cosgrove and his incredible publications at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, and, being young, I set as my goal that the publications I advised would someday beat his Crusader in state competition. It was a noble goal, and probably one that put my newspaper where it is today, but looking back it was a naïve and unrealistic undertaking for a novice adviser. He was the master. He set the standards for excellence then and today, over 30 years later. But he is also generous in sharing his knowledge, in working to not only stay up with the latest technology, but to be on the cutting edge, and in encouraging other advisers to do their best as well. All this I know as I have had the privilege of working with him over the years.

Dave won the AIPA Forest R. Martin Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1972, as the second recipient of that award. His award came not only because of his excellent publications, but because of the hours he devoted to AIPA. He taught at the AIPA Summer Workshop several years in the ‘70s and ‘80s and was Assistant Workshop Director for five years with John Baab. Dave has also served on the AIPA board as treasurer for many years.

Dave and I also served as AIPA Summer Workshop co-directors from 1995-2001. When we took over, the workshop seemed to be on its last leg. Thinking that we might help to re-grow it, we took the bold step to move the then 36-year-old workshop from Flagstaff, its place of origin, to Phoenix for a more central location. Though we almost tripled enrollment that first year, after four years it was time to return to Flagstaff where it remains today.

During those seven years of working together and, yes, occasionally fighting with one another, we persevered with the aid of humor—his quick wit and my quick laughter. We could battle over an issue one minute and walk arms-over-shoulders down the hall the next. I learned what a creative, meticulous, hard-working person my venerable partner was. As we planned on the phone or in our occasional meetings, I knew that any part of the job Dave said he would do, would not only be done, it would be completed on time and would be a professional product we were proud to send out. As friendly, funny and talented as he is, however, Dave also has a very shy side. In fact, it was hard to convince him that he deserved to be honored as a Hall of Fame recipient. He does not like to address large groups, nor does he like to draw attention to himself, but he will work as long as it takes to do a job well or to help a student or partner in need.

Dave has an innate wisdom behind that quick-witted exterior that I have counted on for many years—his advice or input so often nails the issue at hand. Is it any wonder then that he has been so successful and so loved as a teacher, adviser and friend by so many for so many years?

AL LEVIN

By Peggy Gregory

AIPA President

Nominated by 2003 Hall of Fame recipient George Ridge, Al Levin was “a real pioneer,” in scholastic journalism. He taught at Glendale High School from August 6, 1946 to 1952 and in that short time inspired several journalistic icons in the state.

Al remembers reporting for work that first day at Glendale, a new hire from Baltimore whose references were telegraphed to Principal Robert Ashe: Al Levine excellent teacher of junior and senior high school English. Al had walked the quarter mile from his bus stop that hot August day in his East coast coat and tie and checked into the office where Ashe told him to “take off that damned coat and tie.” Thus, was the start of an adventure for Al who advised the Cardinal Hi-Lites newspaper as well as the Cardinal yearbook. Al remembers his newspaper was set on the old Mergenthaler linotype machines at the Glendale News where students met in the evenings to watch a nimble-fingered typesetter named Rollo speed through their copy which they then cut and pasted. Al was urged to change to lithograph printing but found the letterpress product much sharper in detail. That detail paid off when the Hi-Lites won All-Arizona, the top state award in 1952. However, after his first year in a beautiful room on the ground floor of a new building in the only school in the Glendale Union High School District at that time, the newspaper was relegated to a basement room—the famous Room #2. Eventually, the plaque over that room with Al’s room number and name on it was autographed by all his students and given to him at the end of the tenure there.

Al also doubled as a highly respected Arizona Republic correspondent-photographer in the Glendale area taking the assignment when “anyone important” came to town. For that work, he received the princely sum of 20 cents per column inch. Ultimately, though it broke Al’s heart to leave a profession which “I dearly loved,” he said he could not afford to raise three daughters on a teacher’s salary of $4,800, so he headed to Baltimore where he worked as an auctioneer for his father-in-law, but not before he left an indelible mark on scholastic journalism.

Among Al’s well known students was Hugh Harelson, a former Arizona Republic sports editor and the renowned Arizona Highways publisher, who served as the Hi-Lites sports editor. Al remembers the now deceased Hugh Harelson as an exceedingly “good and brilliant student who loved writing and reporting.” Harelson became one of Al’s great friends, and it was he who dubbed Al “Lightning Levin,” for Al’s quick reflexes when a baseball sped toward him, and he “ducked quickly.”

Another Levin protégée was Jerry Jacka, a nationally known author and Arizona Highways photographer-writer. Al and Harelson would often catch lectures by Jacka when all three rendezvoused in Baltimore through the years. Another former student, Jerry Eaton, became an Arizona Republic state editor, worked as a Phoenix Union High School information officer, headed publicity for the Arizona Food Bank and eventually became a publisher in Prescott. George Ridge, “a quiet, laid back” student of Al’s, became a lawyer and a journalism professor at the University of Arizona where he was named Professor Emeritus and department chair. For the last 23 years Ridge has been the summer editor for the Independent Hearld Tribune in Paris. “Luckily for my career, I had the benefit of both Al Levin and Jim Coffroth (also a 2003 Hall of Fame recipient),” wrote Ridge.

Like all great teachers, Al did more than impart knowledge; he inspired. Jim Laughrun, a Hi-Lites columnist who is now a minister and psychologist, wrote, “….that which ran like a ray of sunshine through my junior and senior years at Glendale High School and defined my whole high school journalism experience, and more specifically my life, was Al Levin. He found something of value in me and gave me the opportunity to express it, no matter how “raw” it might have been. Even more important, he was the first person in my life, who by example demonstrated both the importance of and the right to ask questions and to look at reality without illusion. His example and his caring have served me well for 50 years.


John C. Baab

John Baab was the yearbook and photography adviser at Santa Rita High School for 33 years beginning in 1969. During that time, he served on the AIPA board as Vice-President, President, Executive Secretary, Workshop Director and Co-Chairman of the fall conference. When John became Executive Secretary, he said, “I tried to contact everyone in the state which took a huge amount of time, but it gave me more insight into what our advisers were like. Two examples: one school had me call the mayor who was the journalism teacher and yearbook adviser, and at another school the yearbook adviser was head coach of the baseball team and the principal.”

John helped rewrite the constitution during his tenure, which redefined responsibilities and created positions for many people to help run AIPA rather than just a few. This, he felt, saved the organization. This was after Forest Martin had passed away due to cancer, and since Martin had been executive secretary, the organization was very dependent on one person. “I could see that no one person could do the things he did, so I convinced the board that this should be the direction we should take. We rewrote the constitution, and the rest is history,” Baab said.

Likewise, when he ran workshop, John’s philosophy was to impact as many people as possible. “We had a lot of teachers, past workshoppers as helpers, counselors and teachers. The strength of any successful organization is that it is not dependent on one person; this is what has kept AIPA strong. When the average adviser lasts two to four years, it is amazing that AIPA has kept such an active membership. When organizations in New Mexico, California and Colorado have all failed, Arizona has prevailed.”

John also taught photography and yearbook at workshops in San Angelo, Texas; San Francisco and San Diego, California; Greeley, Colorado. His awards for teaching include: 1980, Forrest Martin, 1987, Industrial Arts Teacher of the Year for Arizona and International Technology Education Association; 1994-95 honored by Circle K and University of Arizona for Outstanding Contributions to the success of Educational Programs. In 2002 he was honored by 5 Tucson Police Department—Identification Section and Crime Lab consisting of former students from 1976-1992. They went through the photography program at Santa Rita and /or Pima College where he also taught.

He also sent students to the National VICA (Vocational Industrial Clubs of America) in Video and Photography, which meant that they won the state competition.

Students wrote:

from David T. Garrison, ‘97

Denver, CO

John Baab was one of my teachers from 1994 until 1997 when I graduated from Santa Rita High School. Mr. Baab was a man who has dedicated the majority of his career as a teacher to Santa Rita and the students who attended it. He is somebody I consider to have made a significant impact on myself, numerous other students and his own peers throughout the past few decades.

Mr. Baab and his classroom have always had an open door policy which allowed students the ability to dedicate additional time to projects. He was always available to answer questions and would often stay late to allow students to make up work or work on projects. His various teaching techniques, including methods such as trial and error were very beneficial to most of my peers. Mr. Baab did whatever he could to make sure his students learned the material and that they succeeded in his classroom regardless of what it took.

Mr. Baab also gave his students the opportunity to participate in various activities, clubs and community service projects outside of school. Organizations such as Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA) allowed students to take what they learned inside the classroom and put them to use in real-world situations in areas such as technical, skilled and service occupations. Mr. Baab has demonstrated his dedication to continuous learning by getting his students involved in organizations such as VICA as a way to encourage students the opportunity to excel in life beyond a classroom setting.

John Baab is a teacher that every student at Santa Rita knew and talked about in a positive way regardless of whether or not they had him as a teacher. Throughout his career, the impact and accomplishments he made are truly amazing; he deserves every honor and award that comes his way.

Charlie Smith

Charles Joseph Smith, the only Charlie Smith in the Phoenix phone book, newspaper collector extraordinaire, was born on March 1922, in Chicago. Charlie's ties to AIPA go all the way back to 1952 when he held his first AIPA newspaper show and presentation at the third annual AIPA convention held at ASC (Arizona State College, now known as Arizona State University).  As recently as last year (2003), he held his newspaper show at the AIPA Fall Convention, and has again signed on for the upcoming Oct. 4 Fall convention, also to be held at ASU. 

For the past 52 years, Charlie has brought history in headlines to students and faculty members around the country.  Charlie began his newspaper shows back in 1939, when as a high school student, he spoke to a public speaking class at Phoenix Union High School.  He's been sharing his love of history, newspapers and journalism ever since. Charlie remembers meeting Forest Martin, then president of AIPA, in 1962.  Martin asked Charlie to bring his collection to the AIPA Summer Workshop in Flagstaff, saying that he had first seen Charlie's display 10 years earlier as a student attending the ASC journalism convention.  Charlie was happy to oblige. 

He also remembers visiting Martin in the hospital years later shortly before his (Martin's) death.  Charlie brought a number of newspaper headlines and was later surprised to see the papers plastered on the hospital room walls surrounding Martin!  Charlie greatly admired Martin, and his wife Shirley, for all they did to promote scholastic journalism.

As a child Charlie was a newspaper delivery boy; he then spent time in the Navy from 1941 through 1945.  He eventually spent 28 years working for the U.S. Postal Service and sharing his newspapers with the world. 

He accumulated many of his papers by writing letters to newspapers around the world.  When events were anticipated, he would write a letter and include a quarter or a dollar, and request copies of the papers.  He said that the most interesting papers were often the local papers reporting the hometown events.

Charlie collected papers as a young sailor during World War II.  During one battle in the Pacific a fellow sailor said to him, "How does it feel to be making headlines instead of saving them?!"  According to Charlie, "As soon as we got back I ran down and bought headlines…We weren't allowed to send anything home that showed where we were so I had to store all these papers for months.  I had a separate locker stuffed with them, and when I was transferred later I had two sea bags to cope with: one with my gear and the other full of great newspapers."

Charlie was inspired to collect headlines when he was 11-years-old.  His Aunt May gave him a set of 1933 Chicago Tribune reprints for Christmas. And the rest, as they say, was history. The paper that started his collection was the one-year-old Dec. 10, 1936 edition of the Phoenix Gazette that he bought for 15 cents.  The headline read: EDWARD TRADES THRONE FOR LOVE; PREPARES TO JOIN WALLY IN EXILE.

In 1981 Charlie won a sealed bid from the Arizona State Library that brought him approximately 60,000 newspapers.  His wife, Juanita, and his daughter, Susan, were very helpful with his passion for newspapers.  In his home, he had newspapers stored in so many rooms,  "A CPA came and said to take off every room (as a deduction) except the kitchen and the bedroom…but, I even had them under the bed!" said Charlie.

Charlie's oldest original is a small 1537 edition of News Nieue Zeitung from Germany.  He noted that newspaper pages became larger in response to the Stamp Act, one of the "first forms of tax evasion."  With the Stamp Act, newspapers were taxed on the number of pages published.  Printers decided to increase the size of the page, and reduce the number of pages, to avoid paying as much in taxes.

Charlie often reprints front pages and offers them for a penny, or a dime, or a quarter.  He sells them to cover costs of the reproductions.

"People say to me, 'You won't make any money.'  Look at the kids' faces!  One little boy was crying he was so impressed," said Charlie.

Charlie enjoys providing bits of trivia and moments of comic relief, as he performs little tricks at the school shows.  He also enjoys intriguing students with his famous invisible newspaper, and the even more famous upside-down paper.  Charlie remembered the day one little boy saw the upside down paper on display and asked why Charlie didn't just turn it around.  Charlie said with a smile, "Oh, I wouldn't want to wreck it!"

Even after 52 "official" years of working with AIPA, Charlie still spreads history through headlines. People ask why he continues to do what he does.  "I do it 'cause it's fun!" he said.

John Carlton

From 1960 to 1989, G Carlton was one of the great journalism teachers of his

His weekly Trumpeteer at Catalina High School in Tucson won more scholastic journalism awards than any other newspaper in the nation at the time, including six Pacemakers from the National Scholastic Press Association.

But, “Uncle Dudley,” as he was affectionately known by his students, was much more than an award winner. Like all good journalism teachers, he was a blend of mentor, father, friend and counselor. Carlton was also known for his wit, knowledge of literature, history and popular culture.

Based on his experience working for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald as a young man, he created a professional newsroom in his classroom. It was not unusual to find copies of the New York Times or Los Angeles Times and, of course, the Telegraph Herald scattered around the classroom.

He expected his students to do professional work, so along with those newspapers were copies of Editor & Publisher, the Associated Press Styleboo and books by Edmund Arnold, Jim Murray and Jimmy Breslin.

His dedication to the paper was legendary. Each Friday at the crack of dawn, Carlton would leave a graded copy of that week’s edition on his desk. Staffers would also arrive early to review his critique, validating their hard work and efforts of the week.

He reiterated the importance of esprit de corps and the pursuit of truth. “The truth shall set ye free,” he was fond of telling his students.

His graduates have gone on to populate many of the nation’s leading newspapers, both large and small. Among those are the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Arizona Republic, Long Beach Press-Telegraph, Arizona Daily Star and, of course, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. This is by no means a complete list.

Jose, a 17 year-old exchange student from Costa Rica, summed it up best. “I owe the man a lot. He gave me my profession, my livelihood. When I was 15, I didn’t have the slightest idea what I’d do with my life. Then I walked into his class. He taught me how to write, how to think. He influenced me more than any teacher I ever had…did you ever have a teacher like that?”

So Uncle Dudley, we honor your 29 years of work tonight as we induct you into the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association Hall of Fame. A thank you for the countless number of journalists you produced. Truly, the profession is better because of you.