By Davis Boyce ’25
* Editor’s Note: This is the second of two articles on the history of The Page and the Epistle, the student-run paper. The first article, documenting the origins of The Page and its original history as The Monitor, can be found on our website.
Welcome to the second part of “Behind The Page,” a feature on the history of the St. Paul’s school newspaper, which dates to the 1940s.
The Monitor, the predecessor to the modern-day school paper, The Page and the Epistle, featured news, sports, advertisements, gossip, and more. This paper highlights the evolution of a small journalism group that managed to become an integral part of the school community.
But, The Monitor is only a part of the history of St. Paul’s student newspaper. I interviewed former Page faculty advisor Michal Makarovich to gain answers and insight into The Page and its history. Why was The Monitor discontinued? What came before it? How did it become The Page? And what is the legacy of this nearly one hundred-year-old newspaper?
To pick up where I left off, The Monitor had eventually transformed into a literary magazine, focusing on short stories and writings, rather than news and reporting. However, this changed when Michal Makarovich became its advisor in 1973. Michal suggested to the editors, who wished to publish news alongside the regular contents of The Monitor, that they go forward with this desire and include an article or two surrounding the news in each publication, dubbing it The Monitor Page.
The editor of volume 1 of The Monitor Page was Andy Cohen, and it was published in October of 1976. While Andy lost interest in it shortly after, another editor, Ed Weber, picked it up in May of the same year, shortening the paper name to “The Page.” Ed continued The Page, gaining new editors to work on the project, and, eventually, The Monitor disappeared entirely in favor of an exclusively journalism-based publication, opting to document events and news, rather than stories and other types of content.
The Page increased in popularity by the day and even won more awards than The Monitor in its prime. It also sold more ads in its pages. In addition, the paper included the discussion of more topical issues, such as music and gaming. This made the paper quite unique as other local school newspapers, such as those of the Gilman and Boys’ Latin schools, were focusing exclusively on global issues and sports. This popularity led many to wonder what The Page’s secret to success was. The answer was simple: The Page covered topics that appealed to students.
Of course, other schools already had newspapers of their own, mostly reporting on various happenings on and around their school campuses. Yet, The Page was different. Every other school newspaper in the area wrote about sports or generic news. School administrations decided what was written and what wasn’t; thus, any sort of criticism or controversy surrounding the articles published was nowhere to be found. The student writers of The Page staff, on the other hand, wrote what they wanted to write. Articles like “Public vs. Private,” with pictures of a St. Paul’s student and a Dulaney student arguing and calling each other snobs and dirt bags were published (pictured below). The Page garnered major public attention as its student staff dared to broach many untouched topics, like pieces reviewing albums, video games, and other modern media, as well as critiquing school policies like the demerit system.
The issues of The Page were not only controversial and full of hot topics, but were also very local, focusing on the St. Paul’s community, rather than just musing over global issues. This paid off immensely as The Page became incredibly popular. Many alumni at the time talked about how The Page was vital to the school atmosphere, so much so that each new issue would bring a crowd to pick up paper copies.
Of course, simple doesn’t mean easy. While The Page’s approach to journalism may have resulted in massive success and acclaim, it also caused constant struggles between the staff and school administration about the issue of censorship when it came to difficult topics. The St. Paul’s administration didn’t approve of many of the articles featured in The Page as various student writers discussed controversial topics and would often direct criticism toward members of the St. Paul’s faculty and administration itself.
However, The Page’s faculty advisor, Michal Mccarovich, was there to keep the peace between the administration and the students. Michal’s philosophy as the advisor was that the students wrote what they wanted to write, although he did believe in the importance of respecting the boundaries of the school faculty and staff. This created a kind of truce between the two parties, and allowed for a compromise between them, maintaining the position of The Page as the citadel for student-run and student-written opinions and thoughts.
This legacy of the golden age of The Page is still remembered today as the paper has taken on a digital format. It also merged with SPSG’s newspaper, The Epistle, becoming a single body later in its life, as it is today. Despite this, many of the articles written during the 80s and 90s were more topical and related to school issues than those published now, and it could be argued that The Page was more popular back then than it is currently. Nevertheless, looking back at the paper’s complex and turbulent history and realizing the success it gained while enduring these challenges and shifts brings inspiration to the current staff to continue to speak their minds and write articles that pull readers to the website by catering to student interests.
Footnote:
After doing a bit of digging in the archives with Mr. Mitchell, we discovered something: an article written in 1929 under the name of The Goldbug, stated to be the very first publication of a St. Paul’s newspaper. The Goldbug didn’t last long as the printer went up in flames after a few issues, causing its death almost as soon as the paper started. That issue of the Goldbug is probably the oldest piece of journalism in St. Paul’s history. This should’ve been in the first article, but it wasn’t discovered until after it was published, so I’m inserting it here. Thanks, Mr. Mitchell.