Annual Report 2000
Partnership in life, work, and philanthropy
High-tech is nothing new for Don Larson (B.A. '57, economics, M.A. '62 journalism). He launched his career by introducing a state-of-the-art technology (offset printing) to failing suburban newspapers. Reaping the benefits of a streamlined printing process, Larson built a reputation for embracing new technologies in the newspaper industry. He even stocked his offices at the Sun Newspapers with the latest prototypes of equipment, keeping abreast of technical improvements.
As an alumnus and a tech-savvy businessman, Larson couldn't be more excited about the newly renovated Murphy Hall. "The physical facilities are top-of-the line," he says. "The library, the conference room, and even the auditorium are the best in the country."
Carole Larson (B.A. '65, journalism), Don's partner in both business and life, wholeheartedly agrees. "All you have to do is take one step into Murphy and you can see the improvement," she says.
The Larsons claim "a kind of intellectual paternalism" for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC). Says Don, "We were both students at the U who went into newspaper. It's been our whole professional lives. You tend to be proud of something you have a stake in."
After discovering her love for writing at a young age, Carole knew she was destined for journalism. "In elementary school, I got to stand up and read my short story--boy was I hooked!" she says. Listening to her father's advice that "the U is the best place to get a degree," she enrolled in the SJMC, where she focused her interests on weekly newspapers. After graduation, Carole went to work for the Suburban Newspapers, where she met Don.
Within a year, the two not only had married but had teamed up to take on the newspaper industry in suburban and rural Minnesota.
The Larsons turned their professional bents and talents--hers for community journalism, his for business and technology--toward the task of resuscitating financially troubled small-town weeklies. They began right in their own back yard, in Osseo, with the Crow River News, then picked up a few papers in Iowa, and eventually purchased the Minnesota Sun Newspapers (then Suburban Newspapers)--a conglomerate of 37 local community newspapers. Now retired, Don reflects, "My greatest satisfaction came from sustaining newspapers where they were unsustainable."
With their singular combination of talents, the Larsons were the right people for the job. Carole, who nearly completed a second major in geography, explains that running a newspaper requires a liberal arts mindset. "It's not just good journalism," she says. "It's a lot like rural sociology. You have to treat each community like a person. You have to figure out its personality." As for Don, his technology know-how and his business acumen helped many a small-town paper streamline and update production facilities and operate more cost-effectively while remaining responsive to community needs.
When mass communications professor Walt Brovald heard their small-town success stories, he invited the Larsons to speak to his community journalism class in the early 1980s. The Larsons were happy to accept the invitation from their alma mater but discovered that in the nearly twenty years since either of them had set foot on campus, the journalism school had changed.
"When I was there we were number one," says Carole. "We knew it, the teachers knew it, and you just couldn't get a better education than the U. All of a sudden journalism at the University wasn't where it used to be. When people started talking about whether to keep the J-school at all, we knew we had to do something."
The Larsons helped out however they could--donating their newspapers' old computer systems, hiring students as interns, contributing funds towards the Murphy Hall renovation, and championing the U among members of the Minnesota Newspaper Association, which made Carole its first woman president in 1983-84.
This year, impressed by the J-School's momentum, the Larsons raised the bar and made a significant gift that will help carry that momentum into the future. They were motivated not only by their enormous confidence in the J-School's leadership and faculty but also by a deep commitment to the University's broader educational mission. "This is a land grant institution, and it should be the very best not just in our state but in the nation," says Carole.
The Larsons are eagerly watching the J-School's rise to preeminence--and they're not just rooting from the sidelines, they're actively sharing the accumulated wisdom of their nearly 40 years in the newspaper business. "We had it good for ourselves and we want it good for the next generation," says Carole. "After all, these students are going to be representing us down the line."