WINNER OF 2023 ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS PACEMAKER AWARD, NEWSPAPER/NEWSMAGAZINE NAMED BEST CAMPUS NEWSPAPER IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2022 BY THE CALIFORNIA COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA NEWS PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Volume 163 No. 25 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN DAILY
SERVING SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
News
A&E
Sports
Get to know the business center’s entrepreneurial lab
Fire on the Mountain? No.... Fire on the Fountain
SJSU football team ends homecoming week with a bang
Page 2
Page 3
Page 5
Songwriter honored with Hearst Award
ALINA TA | SPARTAN DAILY
Bob Regan, a Grammy nominated American country songwriter addresses the room full of journalism faculty and students with a smile while discussing his projects.
By Alina Ta & Sofia Hill
rewarding,” Regan said when asked about his Hearst COPY EDITOR & Award win. “I’m just proud STAFF WRITER (of) what I’ve done, but mostly I’m just proud of the veterans that you know, San José State University’s served and entrusted us School of Journalism and with their stories. It’s a big Mass Communications responsibility to get it right.” awarded Bob Regan the 2024 John Delacruz, the William Randolph Hearst director of the School Award at the Dr. Martin of Journalism and Mass Luther King, Jr. Library on Communications, talked Thursday. about how nominations are The William Randolph selected for the award. Hearst awards are given Delacruz said every to individuals who have year, the faculty nominates produced “outstanding different individuals for the professional journalism” Hearst Award for services from SJSU’s School of they have contributed to Journalism and Mass journalism. Communications according “We’re looking at journalism with a broad brush,” Delacruz said. “What does journalism do and how are these people achieving these goals? So, we have a faculty vote, we put our arguments together and Bob won the vote.” SJSU alumna Courtney Lorusso said Regan is a unique contestant because songwriters aren’t necessarily what most people picture when they think of journalism. “You're telling a story, and in this case, a very real story of something that happened to a very real person that went and fought a very real John Delacruz, the director of School of Journalism and Mass Communications, battle,” Lorusso said. presents the William Randolph Hearst Award to Regan on Thursday. Although a songwriter to SJSU’s Instagram page. Regan won this award because of his work as the founder of Operation Song, a non-profit organization that supports veterans by taking their real stories and creating songs from them. Through Operation Song, thousands of veterans have been able to find their voices and get their stories told, according to its website. “When I started, I really didn't have any big ideas about what it was going to be,” Regan said. “Number 1, there was no name. It was just me saying, ‘I think I'm going to go write some songs with veterans and see
what happens.’ ” The goal of these songs is not only to share the stories and lives of these veterans, but to support them mentally and therapeutically by releasing their inner thoughts and turning them to music, according to their website. Operation Song now has written 1,815 songs, and has served 2,646 veterans and their families through the power of music and songwriting, according to the same website. “It feels a little unreal. I’m still digesting it. I have to go home and absorb it and process it, but it’s extremely
isn’t a typical journalistic figure and is pretty unique, Regan storytelling through songs was defended. “You may think, well it’s maybe a non-traditional choice of a candidate, but not when you really dig deep and find out that journalism is about storytelling and giving a voice to the unheard,” Delacruz said. Regan talked about the best parts of working with veterans on the songs and how special moments of connection can be. “So many times I’ve enjoyed just that moment where you connect with a veteran. Oftentimes, they don’t know what they want to write about, they’re just telling a story,” Regan said. Regan said he remembers the first veteran he ever worked with, Todd Foster. Foster had just arrived back home after being in Afghanistan and didn’t want to write a song about his time serving in the military. He said Foster wanted to focus his song on a World War II veteran named Clovis with whom he had coffee at McDonald’s every morning. “Clovis had all these dumb corny jokes and made little Popsicle stick figures. And he (Foster) wanted to write a song called ‘Clovis The Kid.’ It had nothing to do with the military, except
it was about a World War II vet,” Regan said.“So that was the first song I ever wrote, and people seemed to enjoy it.” When talking about the struggles veterans face like PTSD, Regan said a lot of veterans are hesitant to ask for help or say that they have a problem because they don’t want to be seen as “these are their words, a broken soldier.” The songs made for these veterans can help them cope with any mental hardships they have to deal with after serving in combat and make them feel seen when people listen to their songs, according to a video on the Operation Song website. Regan talked about how important the songwriting process holds to him. “And when they say something that’s important to them, and you can make it alive and you sing it back, god that’s magic,” Regan said. “That’s as close to sacred or magical or spiritual [as] anything I’ve ever been a part of in my life. And I hope to be able to continue to do it, or at least others are carrying on.”
Follow the Spartan Daily on X (formerly Twitter) @SpartanDaily