ABAC recently received the 2026 Special Project Award from the Georgia Association of Museums for the work done during an internship digitizing old editions of The Stallion newspaper. Special projects are defined as multi-part projects that demonstrate scholarship and originality that contribute to the cultural fabric of the region and provide examples of excellence in planning and implementation while expanding the museum or gallery audience.
The internship was created in collaboration between students and teachers in the History and Government department; student Bethany Rentz needed an internship, and with the work of Dr. John Cable, Dr. Russell Pryor and Ms. Polly Huff, this internship was created. As a History and Government major, an internship is required for graduation, and with a vested interest in the newspaper at ABAC, Bethany decided to begin digitizing old editions of the Stallion for her internship.
With approval and encouragement from her mentors, Bethany began searching through the ABAC archives. Bethany started by sorting through the very first newspaper on campus, ‘The Red and White’, the predecessor of ‘The Stallion’, which dates back to 1925. Since these papers were so aged, many of them were fragile: containing mold, falling apart, and even stuck to one another. Bethany did what she could with the preserved newspapers, sorting them from the oldest volumes to the most recent.
Once each newspaper is sorted by volume, Bethany uses the scanner in the library to convert them from paper to digital copies. After the digitization process, she would convert them into PDFs and upload them, in order, to the Stallion’s website. In total, she has uploaded seventy-five newspaper issues. On ‘The Stallion’ website, you can access the archive simply by typing “archive” into the search bar.
Throughout this internship, Bethany found interest in the way ABAC has progressed as a school: evolving from some out-of-date practices to more accepting views, and on the flip side, some things she thought should be brought back or reconsidered. “I’m focusing on these people and preserving their stories and what they did,” Bethany says, “These people that are in these old papers matter still!”
With Bethany set to graduate in the spring, and the project of digitizing over 100 years of print media being incomplete thus far, Anthony Baisden is set to take over. Anthony is a junior in the Writing and Communication major, and he has been on board with the internship since last semester. Anthony is continuing the work Bethany has done, and the internship will be passed down until each edition of the newspaper is digitized. Anthony is excited, viewing the newspaper as “the history of ABAC itself. That’s a lot of history.” The most recent year uploaded is 1963 – and that’s a long way from 2026!