Keeping with our "The Way They Were" theme this week -- highlighting the college exploits of Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Rod Blagojevich and more -- we have a bonus edition: Roger Ebert.
Historian Angus Johnston, who keeps a blog on student activism, came across a 1964 picture of Ebert while he was researching his dissertation at the U.S. National Student Association archives in Madison, Wisc. (See the photo, and full post, here.)
According to Johnston:
Before he was a movie critic, Roger Ebert was a student journalist. He wrote for the University of Illinois Daily Illini as an undergraduate, serving as the paper's editor in his senior year.
Ebert also served a term as president of the United States Student Press Association, a national association of student newspaper editors affiliated with the National Student Association that supported campus media and advocated for student press freedom. As president of the USSPA, Ebert was invited to the White House reception at which the above photograph was taken.
Upon his recent discovery of the picture (Johston initially posted it last year) Ebert tweeted: "OMG! Who found this, and where, and how?"
Johnston claims that Ebert's tweet sent 2,500 hits to his site in 10 minutes.