Portland State Magazine Fall 2016

FALL 2016 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 29 BEFORE Portland State was a university or college, it was the Vanport Extension Center, founded in 1946 to serve veterans returning from World War II. One of those veterans, Don Carlo, started the first student newspaper, Vet’s Extended , just months after the center opened. Carlo had lost his sight while serving in the army, but newspapers remained his passion. He had worked on the student newspaper at Portland’s Washington High School, the San Francisco Chronicle and on army post newspapers. The editorial offices for Vet’s Extended were in Carlo’s apartment, where the staff read stories to him for editing. Just a few months after the first issue, the newspaper’s name was changed to the Vanguard , which today is published every Tuesday during the school year. Carlo only attended Vanport for a term. He went on to earn advanced degrees with the help of his wife, Joyce. His blindness never held him back, says his son, Andrew Carlo. He was teaching history at a private school in Connecticut when he died in 1974 at the age of 51 from a brain tumor, a possible complication from the head injury that left him blind.  70 years ago, our first student newspaper Looking Back