The University Star showcases its legacy in an Alkek Library exhibit honoring those who shaped the organization. It is on display through fall 2026.

Fred W. Adams established The University Star in 1911. He proposed the idea to the college president and said he would pay any printing costs not covered by advertising. In exchange, the president allowed him to keep the profits.

The first issue of the then-called Normal Star was published on April 11, 1911, marking the start of what would become one of Texas’ longest‑running student publications.

Kristin Van Diest, head of Special Collections and Archives, worked on the display with her team alongside The Star’s PR team and director. They curated the display to show the different eras of the newspaper, from The Normal Star to The College Star to today’s University Star.

“We had the idea to make sure that we were featuring the different mastheads, changes of the name and the font and the layout, and so that was really important to us to showcase as we moved through the decades,” Van Diest said.

Van Diest worked alongside Jason Crouch, Special Collections librarian, and Emma Gomez, graduate research assistant. Van Diest and Crouch said the more pieces they found, the more individual stories emerged.

Crouch said one of his favorite pieces in the exhibit is the original editor-in-chief plaque, which lists the names of notable individuals who began their careers at The Star, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“I think [the plaque] is just cool because it is history encapsulated,” Crouch said. “You’ve got LBJ on there and lots of folks who went into long careers in journalism, I’m sure.”

Edmond “Ed” Komandosky, former editor-in-chief in the 1960s and an adviser to The Star in the 1970s, is one of many individuals who helped shape the newspaper’s identity. Komandosky said one of his proudest moments with The Star came when he ran a last-minute national story about former premier Nikita Khrushchev’s removal from the Soviet Union’s leadership in October 1964, expanding the reach of a previously campus-focused newspaper.

“We didn’t normally run national or international news in The Star, but that was an important thing,” Komandosky said.

The Star does not exist without the people who trust it to tell their stories. Kathleen “Kathy” Fite, former professor and elementary education alumna, shared one of her students’ stories, Awad Abdelgadir, with The Star to remember the life he lived. She said seeing the story about him published meant a lot to her.

“The University Star did a wonderful article on him,” Fite said. “He’s recently passed, but for years, we went to different schools, and I would introduce him … and he talked about his homeland, and we talked to just hundreds of young children in the schools.”

According to Alkek Library, the exhibit highlights “design changes, content coverage, campus evolution and ever-evolving student life and tradition.” It shows the people who built The Star and shaped 115 years of coverage, from student editors to advisers to community members. Van Diest said one of her favorite parts of shaping the exhibit was including authentic pieces from an individual’s personal archives, including a camera from the 1980s.

“I think that’s really cool, just to have that kind of authentic artifact that was actually used to photograph images for The University Star in there,” Van Diest said.

For more information about the history of The University Star, visit its “About” page at https://universitystar.com/about/.