SAN ANTONIO — Sergio Medina will be the first to admit that he got emotional when he walked into The Ranger newsroom at San Antonio College (SAC) after a year-and-half-long hiatus.
“No one was here. Dr. Lo wasn’t here, the staff wasn’t here, so I started crying,” Medina said. “It just got to me, I got emotional.”
Things got more heartbreaking for Medina when he found out that The Ranger's 95-year-old publication is ceasing operations after three of its longtime faculty members — coordinator Marianne Odom, and instructors Irene Abrego and Dr. Edmund Lo — called it a career.
As the editor-in-chief of, Medina had to break this news to the world.
“Ms. Odom did task me with covering this story and I knew eventually I had to get past those emotions and get to work,” Medina said.
Just like in the real world. That’s what SAC journalism students get early on at The Ranger — harsh edits, mentorship from veterans and a platform to cover hard-hitting stories that matter.
Students like Medina and Veronica Alcorta understand it’s no one’s fault that three faculty members are retiring so they are going to make the most of the time they have left in this journalism-photography program.
“I want to show the campus that when I do go out that we are not just a bunch of college kids running around playing journalists — we are journalists,” Alcorta said.
Alcorta spent her time running around campus for mid-term in Lo’s class. She was given the task of finding a group of folks, and capturing photos of them.
“What is your major?” She asked a student as she jotted down in her 4x8-inch reporter notebook.
Alcorta admitted that she was thrown into the deep end at The Ranger, but she relished in that challenge.
“Yeah, it was always just writing for me. I never had the want or the need to pickup a camera,” Alcorta said. “And then now that I’ve been in this class, I take my camera with me everywhere.”
She’s disappointed she got to experience one semester of The Ranger, but she’s a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.Alcorta plans to be a political reporter one day.
This 95-year-old journalism program has produced some of the most well-known journalists in the state, but more importantly it made journalism affordable and attainable for students who come from low-income backgrounds.
Sergio has been in the program for four years for that very reason — now his future is uncertain.
“I’m taking like a hiatus between now and a university because I can’t afford the university right now. One of the benefits of being here at this program is that they teach you things that you can you could apply anything communications related,” Medina said.
Whether SAC decides to rebrand the journalism program or keep the name The Ranger, students say that it still won’t feel like The Ranger of the last 95 years.
Medina says he plans write the best stories he possibly can as The Ranger era ends.
“Everybody who went through here for those 95 years, you start to feel the weight of what you are writing about,” Medina said.