On March 3, 1970 Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water was at the top of the charts, Barbra Streisand was making them laugh in Funny Girl, and LCC was charging senior citizens $6 per term and building a new science building. The article describes it as being between the Air Frame Building and the Center Building.
In March of 1985 Madonna taught the world what a Material Girl was, The Goonies introduced the world to the beauty of Astoria and LCC was excited about the United States Football League coming to Oregon.
In March of 2014 The Last of Us was just a video game and exercise meant playing the Wii U with friends. Meanwhile the Torch editorial staff was discussing the idea of arming security and even students. The first sentence of the article introduces us to the importance of public safety discussions, “Lane Public Safety officers conducted a drill gauging how the campus community would behave during a shooting spree.” The article goes on to talk about what would happen if a violent person was on campus. “If a violent person is on campus, Public Safety will have to call the Lane County Sheriff’s Office for backup.” Anyone who was here on campus during the lockdown on Wednesday Feb. 22 saw first hand the quick response of the Lane County Sheriff’s officers. This debate of arming people on campus still continues to this day.
Our last throwback article comes from March 7, 2018. The world didn’t know what COVID-19 was yet and Childish Gambino’s song “This is America” painted a bleak reality of gun violence, police brutality, and racism. In an opinion article from The Torch archives a different tone was taken on arming students and staff. The Feb. 17 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida had happened weeks before and the country was once again faced with the ongoing debate of how to deal with gun violence. This article takes a different approach from the 2014 call to arm Lane’s Public Safety officers. “If you still believe that giving people more guns is the answer, amid all the evidence that points to the contrary, then you probably will forever until an affable gym teacher breaks up a fight between your son and another student by shooting first and asking questions later.”
