“To my students, for whom I set a high bar, a bar that I turn to whenever I realize I am not producing my best work.”
— Mac McKerral, “A Journalist’s life: People, Places, Things.”
By Devon Price
Grumbling softly as he moves through the classroom, his tennis shoes grip the floor beneath straight leg jeans.
When he walks, he leans slightly to the right, as if his left side is tired of holding the weight. He moves slowly. His face is painted with wrinkles that show his age.
The frown lines stand the clearest, likely because his facial expression most often sits in what looks like resting disapproval.
They reflect life at 72 years filled with love, turmoil and a lot of beer.
In all the classes I ever attended with Mac McKerral, I’m sure I could count on one hand the times I’ve seen him wear anything other than a mock turtleneck and quarter zip pullover. This day, his glasses rested slightly below the bridge of his nose, making him look like a grandfather in a children’s book.
Behind him appears the start of a PowerPoint presentation that states “The Wizard of Western Kentucky, Mac McKerral.”
A poorly Photoshop-created image depicts McKerral’s head floating above the lair from “The Wizard of Oz.”
The animated background, overly saturated in green, brings a sweet humor to an introduction to his class — a stark contrast from his present glare as he sits in his office for an interview.
While in the class, his eyebrows furrow, and his mouth appears in a straight line.
He looks void of amusement.
The students around me look nervous.
Then he breaks into a smile.
He begins moving through the presentation with unexpected enthusiasm.
The slide about his grade school — Infant Jesus of Prague, Flossmoor, Illinois — prompts an animated story on the root of his fear of nuns.
Hands tightly to his side, he begins to waddle in place. Shifting the weight slowly from one foot to another, depecting why he and his childhood friends referred to nuns as “penguins” because of the way the heavyset Dominicans walked.
By the end of the PowerPoint, the class has laughed at countless silly demonstrations, tales of clashes with the law and bashes at his older sisters.
I determine quite quickly, McKerral is a teller of stories.
Online professor evaluation:
1.0/ 5 “Mac is the hardest teacher I have ever had! I absolutely hate this class and think he is a terrible teacher. All he does is tell stories in class then expect you to do homework that he never goes over or gives clarity. He grades super tough like a comma can not be out of place. He LOVES his red ink pen. If you can avoid him please do!!!”— Rate My Professor, Anonymous
Gordon “Mac” McKerral has spent his entire adult life writing. His longest companion is a pen and paper.
McKerral began his journalism career at the Herald & Review in Decatur, Illinois. A snowy Illinois morning left him solitary in the office where he showed up for a practice interview. The Lifestyle section editor could not make it to the interview. She was stuck somewhere in the Midwest because of a snowstorm.
McKerral sat at a newsroom desk hoping anyone could interview him.
Three days went by, and in the meantime, he helped the Lifestyle section copy editor by doing photo-page layout, fact-checking, copy editing, and whatever she handed him.
Eventually, Carol Alexander, the Lifestyle section editor returned.
When McKerral initially requested the interview, Alexander told him that she did not hire entry-level reporters, but she would interview McKerral to give him the experience.
That changed.
“I guess you know what you are doing,” Alexander told him during the interview.
She hired him.
Alexander, McKerral’s first editor and mentor, landed her a chapter in McKerral’s memoir, “A Journalist’s life: People, Places, Things.”
The chapter, “Alexander the Great,” describes her as “a ruthless editor, demanding and a perfectionist. She did not suffer fools (or rookie foolish reporters).”
During his first evaluation, he met with Alexander’s unfiltered feedback.
“You cannot spell, you cannot type, and your reporting is weak,” McKerral recalled.
Alexander’s editing and mentoring strengthened the reporting but not the spelling.
In September 1988, after eight years as a reporter and editor, McKerral combined his love for teaching and reporting in the Hall School of Journalism at Troy State University (now Troy University) in Alabama.
McKerral’s undergraduate degree is in secondary education/history, and he taught high school and elementary school for three years before getting his master’s in Journalism at the University of Illinois.
Fresh from the newsroom, McKerral was ready for a new challenge — undergraduate students.
Enter, Lance Wallace.
Wallace entered the journalism school at Troy with the awkwardness of any college freshman but the confidence of a student who had spent much time honing his skills in high school working for his town’s newspaper. He came with a full-ride scholarship and high hopes for a career in journalism.
Nothing stood in his way, he thought.
Wallace walked into McKerral’s class determined to win over the new professor.
“He does not cut you any slack,” Wallace said. “He doesn’t give you an easy way out. But he will help you be the best that you can be. And I think as a teacher, that is the highest possible compliment that I can pay a teacher.”
Wallace’s strategy for approval focused on McKerral’s weekly Associated Press style quizzes.
McKerral gave the class a chance to prove their stylebook mastery by asking them to create their own quiz to use in the reporting class.
Wallace saw this challenge as an opportunity and recalled McKerral’s lecture on the value of tight, efficient writing.
“I remember he even said, gosh, I can’t remember his quote, it was something to the effect that he could even edit the Bible,” said Wallace “Like it needed some editing.”
Searching high and low through the depths of the stylebook, Wallace pulled any obscure style usages he could find. He weaved a quiz he believed even McKerral couldn’t handle.
In class the next week, Wallace held a new confidence in his one-up on the man, a message that said, “Look at me. I belong here.”
But his confidence bubble burst when the weekly quiz handed out was the quiz Wallace created.
McKerral was making a point of his own.
The students around Wallace groaned.
The anonymous red-haired boy with good skills turned to class enemy in one skewed attempt to stump the professor.
“My reputation plunged further the next day when Mr. McKerral handed back the graded quizzes while offering a derisive commentary to each student,” wrote Wallace in an untitled memoir work of his own.
“If looks could kill, I wouldn’t have made it to Spring Break,” Wallace said.
“Mocking everyone’s performance with a quip, Mr. McKerral saved my quiz for last. He relished pointing out my own poor performance to the class.”
“As you all know, young Mr. Wallace here wrote this quiz,” Wallace said about that day.
“McKerral held my paper aloft and fluttered his eyelids,” Wallace said.
Wallace recounted what McKerral said this to the class: “What you probably don’t know is that he missed three of his own questions on the test.”
The class breathed easier with a promise from McKerral that the quiz wouldn’t count for a grade.
McKerral, proud of his victory, laughed at his joke, loudly and lively enough to revive the entire room.
“He had an infectious laugh,” said Wallace. “Like, he really enjoyed life,”
The two became good friends. Long nights working on the student newspaper turned to post-graduation work on the Society of Professional Journalists Board of Directors that left Wallace with not only an influential professor but a mentor and a lifelong friend.
From a memoir by Wallace:
“I’ve told Mac ‘Thank you’ dozens of times for all the kindnesses, gifts, opportunities, and advice he’s given me over the years, but it seems insufficient for the degree to which he contributed to my growth and development as a journalist, writer, manager and leader.
“He helped shape the person I am today. His impact on my life went well beyond his role as my journalism professor. Thank you, Mac, for everything. I am grateful for your generosity, patience, tough love, and wisdom. If you have made a fraction of the difference in your other students’ lives throughout your career as you have made in mine, you have a profound legacy of which you should be proud.”
Online professor evaluation:
5.0/5 “Some people think Mac’s a grouch but he’s hilarious. Best professor in the journalism dept. He gets sidetracked sometimes but he also discusses the material you need to know. I had him for press law too and that’s one of my favorite classes in the dept. Don’t miss class, check your email. He doesn’t use BB but he’ll send you all the PP’s” — Rate My Professor, Anonymous
But to some, McKerral is not a mentor, not a role model and not a professor.
He’s the “Midnight Cowboy.”
Who is the midnight cowboy? An undergraduate Arizona State University student with a penchant for going on late night dates.
“He would take out people’s girlfriends ‘just as friends’ to go out for dinner,” said Geoff Dowling, McKerral’ fraternity brother and college roommate, who bestowed the nickname “Midnight Cowboy” on McKerral.
One night, McKerral asked an unsuspecting roommate for $20 for a date. Being a good wingman, his friend obliged.
McKerral took the roommate’s girlfriend out to dinner.
And McKerral always comes with a stinging line loaded.
Al Larson, a close friend of McKerral’s and fraternity brother at Arizona State University, recalls trying to get in touch with his wife. He walked away to call her when behind him he heard McKerral yell, “Hey Larson! Who ya talking to?”
“Trying to get a hold of my wife,” Larson replied.
And McKerral, without missing a beat, shouted back, “Yeah we all are!”
“And I didn’t take it any other way than just the humor, you know?” said Larson. “Oh, yeah, you might have been offended. I was like — I just laughed. That’s Mac.”
The “Midnight Cowboy” routine continued as McKerral’s education continued.
Dowling recalls a time when his wife was in Champaign, Illinois, where McKerral attended graduate school.
“My wife was down there with the kids because my in-laws live down there,” said Dowling. “And he and my wife went off to dinner, and I was back in Chicago working and never knew about it till the time she came home and told me. Typical Midnight Cowboy.”
Something McKerral enjoys even more than going on dates with unavailable women: horse racing.
McKerral has a long-standing tradition of attending the Kentucky Derby. May 4, 2024, was his 54th year in a row attending the race.
“Other than breathing, I have done nothing (54) years in a row,” wrote McKerral in his memoir.
McKerral and a handful of friends make their way to Louisville, Kentucky, for a weekend of horse racing and beer drinking. A weekend that takes over six months of prep time: watching races, reading stats and placing bets, Dowling said.
The horse racing hobby is so important that McKerral has missed multiple weddings to attend races.
Wallace married on the same day as the Kentucky Derby. McKerral sent a nice gift in his place.
Dowling came up short an usher for his wedding when McKerral headed to California for a race.
“He’d miss your wedding for a horse race, but he’d give you the shirt right off his back,” Dowling said.
Online professor evaluation:
1.0/5 “I got fine grades in the class but only because I’m good at teaching myself. He doesn’t use a textbook and has minimal PowerPoints so the tests are based off pretty much solely his lectures (which are dry and disorganized). The research paper for this class has nothing to do with the course content, rendering it pointless & too long for a 300 level.” — Rate My Professor, Anonymous
McKerral always has a lot to say, but it doesn’t mean everyone likes it.
“Some people like me, some people would just tell you I’m a nut job,” said McKerral. “Some people wish I would shut up and get out of here.”
One of McKerral’s most prolific critics is a Floridan.
McKerral was managing editor at the Panama City News-Herald from 1998-1999. During that time there, he anticipated weekly mail from Mr. Cox.
Each week brought a new postcard full of clippings from the newspaper marked with notes pointing out errors, sloppiness, and Mr. Cox’s opinions on what was wrong with the paper that day. The postcards also came with cryptic notes.
The tone was critical, and repeated lines became familiar to McKerral such as “NOT real news.”
Drawings around photos of local politicians were followed by comments like “Can you believe this guy?’
Regarding a photo McKerral took, he wrote, “Poor likeness of Jim, looks more like Channel 13 noon whether guy.”
Each disapproving postcard entry was balanced out with what reads like confessions to a pen pal, as if maybe, Mr. Cox saw McKerral as something more than an editor who couldn’t do his job.
McKerral, relaxed in his office chair in Room 222 in Jody Richards Hall at WKU, smiles softly and laughs loudly recounting the cards from Mr. Cox. He pushes himself up out of his chair, slowly using his arms. He walks to the metal file cabinet beyond his desk, one shoulder resting higher than the other as he leans slightly to the right. Reaching down, he pulls out a crisp white envelope and drops it in front of me.
“Whack job,” he laughs while lowering himself back into his chair and handing me postcards from Mr. Cox.
Rummaging through the pile of cards, his laughter never ceases.
The newspaper-clipping littered postcards covered his desk.
Headlines have been scratched out with aggression. The clippings were stitched together with tape and impatience.
Manic scribbles do their best to discredit a story.
Black-and-white photos are torn apart at the face, to express disapproval and disdain.
The address on one postcard:
MAC/ DUNC “EDS”
NEWS- HERALD
BOX 1940 PC FL 32402
“Some of them are hilarious, but you know what, some of the things that he finds are actually things that needed fixing,” McKerral says. “Imagine someone taking the time to do that. And then years later, I start getting comments on a blog I wrote about citizen engagement. And who does it turn out to be? Mr. Cox. He’s like following me, stalking me. That is hilarious.”
Online professor evaluation:
2.5/5 “Mac means well, but he’s always in a bad mood. He comes to class and complains about random things, so I always leave class in a worse mood than when I arrived. He sends out a lot of emails, so make sure you check them! He can be funny, but he can also be rude and a debby downer. His class is hard work so don’t take this if you’re not up for it.” — Rate My Professor, Anonymous
His office stays at a crisp 65 degrees (the explanation as to why involves a long-winded complaint about the university budget).
When asked a question about university policy, McKerral leans forward, hands waving, and 40-minute ramble comes with the same transition: “and you know what else.”
Words of disapproval toward the university’s treatment of its students and faculty flow freely. At Faculty Senate meetings, he tosses difficult questions at administrators.
McKerral is not known to back down.
In every conversation, McKerral’s focus lies on one thing, his students.
He’s always been known for his love of the journalism craft and love for those he teaches.
Robyn Eoff, a long-term, ex-girlfriend turned lifelong best friend recalls those loves above all else.
“What struck me the most was his dedication to his students,” she said. “And I liked that. That’s what I felt myself for my students and, and I don’t think he ever lost that. I truly don’t. I think he’s still just as dedicated to his students as he was.”
The two met at an SPJ conference, and though their romantic relationship ended, they seem to have never lost the magnetic pull that brought them together in the first place. The pull that on their first date found them laughing in a park as the sun went down, jumping on the merry-go-round and taking turns pushing one another around under the stars.
“It’s even hard for me to say, you know, when we were a couple and when we were just friends,” Eoff said. “It was just a natural flow into a friendship. He’s still the first person I would call if I have a really big problem, not necessarily looking for a solution. But he’s a good ear. He made me laugh. And we could make each other laugh.”
McKerral confides in Eoff often, and his fighting back on university policies that he doesn’t agree with is no surprise to her.
“I think sometimes, maybe it’s a fault because some people may see him as being a hothead, because he’s outspoken,” Eoff said. “And I don’t think he’s a hothead at all. I think that he’s so passionate about what he feels should be done, needs to be done, isn’t being done. He is not afraid to speak out. And sometimes he tends to speak loudly, but he’s, if he criticizes something, it’s not to be hurtful or rude. It’s to be truthful and helpful. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. If he thinks you’re stupid, he’s probably going to let you know.”
As the semester ends and time passes closer to McKerral’s last years on campus, who knows the waves he will make on his way out.
In his memoir, McKerral writes, “I decided I cannot keep fighting losing battles. I cannot keep expecting change, when no change can occur. I cannot keep generating reports at work that only serve to justify the existence of someone higher on the food chain — that rarely get looked at or serve any useful purpose. I cannot continue to carry slackers. I can no longer be the hole in the roof. Water always finds it.”
Online professor evaluation:
4.0/5 “Professor Mac is one of my favorite humans I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He cares truly for his students, even though he tries to hide behind a grouchy demeanor. Get to know him and you won’t regret it. He is very knowledgeable and wants his students to succeed. In Mac’s classes, you reap what you sow. Also, ask him about his music tastes.” — Rate My Professor, Anonymous[1]
As plans begin for the time after McKerral resides in his cold office in Jody Richards Hall, he speaks boldly in meetings and to colleagues. He works to ensure that his students get the care they deserve. Through the grumpy exterior, shines a desire to see the people around him succeed that even his biggest critics must find hard to ignore.
“I love journalism, and I believe it will save the world some day,” McKerral said. “But I was born to teach, and with the few remaining years I have above ground, I want to do it and love it like I did before.”
Still, he maintains his persona.
He’s a grumpy old man with a lot to say and a heart big enough to fight for his students, even when it ruffles feathers. He’s willing to toss his reputation to the side to stand up for what he believes in — even when it means refusing to allow the Kroger liquor store to scan his driver’s license (rather than just reading the date) for fear of his information getting stolen.
I typed an email asking to visit McKerral’s office hours. After not seeing him for a few weeks, a visit feels appropriate. He writes back his availability, beginning every email addressing me as “D:.” Where he developed the nickname, I’m not sure. Following my response on when I would arrive, his response is straightforward.
“Yay!”
Online professor evaluation:
5.0/5 “One of my favorite professors I have had by far! He is a harsh grader – I have turned in numerous assignments that I thought I did well on but they were returned with things that I could improve on. Typically this would be discouraging, but P-Mac is well-educated in the field of journalism and I take his feedback as suggestions rather than insults.” — Rate My Professor, Anonymous
McKerral has returned papers to me so covered in red ink that I cried on the walk home.
He’s also stayed late after class, working hard to ensure I understood the assignment.
I felt lost during test reviews, only to submit my test and hear “P-Mac” whisper, “Don’t sweat it. I’m sure you did great.”
He’s left me feeling defeated, overwhelmed, encouraged and supported. He’s left me with a copy of his book. Signed with the message: “Great pals! Ignore the typos.”
A book that I read in one sitting.
A book that states, “Writing is hard. If it’s going to be great writing, it’s even harder. It takes patience, focus, discipline and thoughtfulness. When it comes to my Rolodex of personal traits, those cards are generally missing. I have started books. I have done research for books. I have spoken with authors about books. I have read articles on how to write books. And I read books voraciously. All for naught as my life draws to a close. So, this book is likely as good as it gets.”
Online professor evaluation:
5.0/5 “PMAC seems like he would be a hard grader, and a difficult professor. He is. Once you get to talk to him and understand how much knowledge and experience he has, you realize how valuable he is as a professor. He may be sarcastic, and certainly has a lot of dry humor, but he is one of the most caring and intentional professors I have ever had. He is the best.” — Rate My Professor, Devon Price
In is memoire, McKerral wrote:
“My best writing remains locked away somewhere, and the key remains elusive, perhaps in life’s calling ‘Lost and Found.’ Found by many others, but so far, not by me.”
And “far” it has been at age 72.
Musical references are scattered throughout the chapters in his memoire, so it seems closing with one from the memoir would be appropriate. And turning to the Beatles, McKerral’s favorite musicians, seemed appropriate for putting the hunt for his inner writer in context:
“Many times I’ve been alone, and many times I’ve cried. Anyway, you’ll never know the many ways I’ve tried. And still, they lead me back to the long and winding road. You left me standing here a long, long time ago. Don’t leave me waiting here. Lead me to your door.” — the final page of “A Journalist’s Life.”
I finished McKerral’s book as I finish this story — with tear-stained pages scattered in front of me, reflecting on the life of someone who cares more for the people around him than he’ll ever be able to show.
I can only hope he knows between the painful red ink pen marks, infuriating returned grades, and long-winded stories, he has changed at least one life, my own. Leaving me determined to carry his legacy with me for as long as I can, telling his tales to anyone who will listen.
Not because he’s a hero, but because he’s human.
He’s man made of stories, and aren’t we all?
So, one final passage from his book, a poem with the title “Cemetery Road.”
“Does a story untold rest with her remains?
Maybe I should take another route on other days,
Cheat my mind out of the tricks it often plays,
Those headstones must come with tales about life and such,
To most folks those stories don’t mean that much,
But a journalist’s gold is those stories untold,
Like the ones beneath the headstones on Cemetery Road.” — Mac McKerral, “A Journalist’s Life”
