 | NEWSHOUNDS: Cigar News Editor Katie Haughey and Sports Editor T.J. Auclair in the newsroom at the Memorial Union.
|  | PLANNING: Cigar staff members at a weekly meeting just before the semester’s end last month.
|  | Anna Maria Virzi ’79
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Late nights, lasting friendships bind Cigar staffOld newspapers, soda bottles, and even crumbs from hastily eaten dinners littered the conference table as editors of the URI student newspaper gathered for their weekly Thursday night meeting.
They were tired, but ready to plan another week of coverage.
Except for the computers and an Associated Press (AP) terminal, the environment didn’t look much different from 22 years earlier when the Good Five Cent Cigar went from being a twice-weekly publication to a paper published Tuesday through Friday.
“The first thing you do when you get to school is come to the Cigar office, and the last thing you do at school is leave the Cigar,” said Anne Kumar, one of the managing editors.
“We have to tell each other to go home,” said Brian Quinlan, editor-in-chief. “We put the paper to bed anywhere between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., usually about 12:30 a.m.”
While working 30 to 40 hours a week on the paper, and at the same time trying to keep up their grades, staff members would change little.
“I don’t think anyone would do it if they didn’t love it,” Quinlan said.
Talking about major University and national happenings may shift the young reporters’ news instincts into high gear, but the 20-member staff is also revved up by the less concrete benefits of giving their hearts and souls to the paper.
“I have made a lot of great friends here,” said sports editor T.J. Auclair.
“I’ve met so many different people both here on the staff and around campus, because I work on the paper,” Kumar said. “I’ve even learned how to argue over story ideas in our meetings.”
News Editor Katie Haughey said the Cigar has “more than anything else, made me far less timid. In four years, I have learned not to back off.”
As she looked across the table, Haughey added, “These are my best friends. Anne and I have been housemates for two years, and all of us call each other when we’re having a hard time, even if it’s 3 a.m.”
Kumar said that during her freshman year, she used to write her stories at home and drop them off. “Then I would go home and cry because I didn’t have any friends. Being heavily involved with the Cigar changed all that.”
Auclair said he is grateful for the support and professional tips he has picked up from Providence Journal sports writers Paul Kenyon, Kevin McNamara and Bill Reynolds, and other writers from around the country.
Auclair said that working at the Cigar has also given him a vast knowledge of the campus.
Quinlan said he believes Cigar staff members are better prepared for a journalism career. “We get the best of everything; the journalism professors not only critique our classwork, but they critique our stories in the paper too. We also learn a great deal from each other.
“And if you are going to mess up, what better place to do it than here,” Kumar added with a smile.
By Dave Lavallee, (Good Five Cent Cigar ‘75-‘78).
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