Noel Yancey, a long time reporter for the Associated Press in Raleigh, N.C., shared some of his experiences with Elon students during a class visit Monday, Sept. 1.
Yancey, 89, spent 39 years with AP before retiring in 1979. During his career, Yancey covered the state legislature, the governor’s office and significant court cases and events.
In 1954, Yancey was in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to cover Hurricane Hazel as it made landfall. He told students in Janna Anderson’s Reporting for the Public Good class about the difficulties he encountered.
“In those days, you filed your notes by phone, and I had to drive 50 miles inland from the coast to use the phone,” Yancey said. He then returned to Myrtle Beach, gathered more notes and drove back to the same phone several hours later. “So I drove 100 miles that day just to use the phone twice.”
Accompanied by his daughter, Carra Schoene, Yancey told students reporters should have a tremendous sense of curiosity and be fair and honest. “A lot of journalists now try to make the news rather than reporting it.”
Yancey wrote a column for the Spectator, now the Independent, in the Triangle after his retirement. He reminded the students, most of whom weren’t born when he retired from AP in 1979, that “when you get to be 89, you know you have more yesterdays than tomorrows!”
Paul Parsons, dean of the School of Communications, presented Yancey with a certificate and a gift in honor of his career. The School of Communications traditionally honors someone on Labor Day who has had a long and distinguished career in a communications-related profession.