“Legendary”: Mooney remembered by former colleagues, students

Jack Mooney loved ETSU, he believed in good, honest journalism and according to his former students, the thoughtful, soft-spoken professor always seemed to have a smile on his face.

For Stephen Marshall, chair of ETSU’s Department of Media and Communication, Mooney was a mentor, a dear friend and the first voice he heard from ETSU. In January 2006, after Marshall applied to work at ETSU, Mooney called him asking if he would be interested in coming in for an interview.

“When I came to interview, he picked me up at Tri-Cities airport,” Marshall said. “And I’ll never forget him standing there in his Air Force jacket waiting to pick me up outside of security.”

Marshall said Mooney is “angelic” to him, and every single time he travels, he still pictures Mooney standing right in that spot.

“He’s just—he’s a beacon of light for me,” Marshall said.

Mooney, who taught journalism at ETSU for 40 years, died Feb. 8, at the age of 81.

The Maryland native served in the U.S. Air Force after high school, stationed in Ramstein, Germany. He went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Georgia and his doctorate from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and he worked in newspaper and television journalism in Georgia, Maryland and Germany.

Mooney became a journalism instructor at ETSU in 1970. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1977 and promoted to full professor in 1993. He retired in 2010 but continued to teach as an adjunct faculty member in ETSU’s Department of Communication until 2015.

“He set such an amazing example for what our profession, both in what professors—I believe—should care about and what the young talent that we get the fantastic opportunity to help develop should also care about in the industry,” Marshall said.

Aside from teaching, some of Mooney’s accomplishments at ETSU included working to get the department accredited, helping establish the professional communication graduate program, being a department chair, being head of the department’s journalism, advertising and public relations divisions and being an advisor to the Pirate Press.

He also, along with Ardis Nelson, co-founded El Nuevo, the Northeast Tennessee region’s first and only Spanish-English publication, which was produced annually by ETSU journalism and Spanish students from 2000-2018. Marshall said El Nuevo was Mooney’s pride.

“He felt it was essential for that community to have a voice,” Marshall said. “And he wanted his students to be able to have an experiential opportunity producing [a publication], and not just students in our program but students across the university—you know it’s in foreign language, literature and language and partnerships across the university—to try to bring disciplines together to focus on giving [an] underrepresented population a voice.”

In addition to his departmental contributions, Mooney impacted people through the relationships he formed with them. Someone he had a long-lasting impact on was his friend and former colleague, Jerry Hilliard.

“Through his influence and his help, I ended up moving to Johnson City and ETSU,” Hilliard said. “And if it hadn’t been for his friendship, you know—talk about affecting somebody’s life—I mean, he played a key role in forming the direction of [how] my and my family’s lives went. He got us to Johnson City, and had he not, I never would have gotten to know all of the great students and friends that I made at ETSU.”

Mooney and Hilliard first became friends while in UTK’s doctoral program together in the mid-1970s. Mooney later convinced Hilliard to come to ETSU, where he was hired as a journalism professor and advisor to the East Tennessean. Hilliard said they shared everything as colleagues, including an office.

“We were just as close as any two faculty members could be,” Hilliard said. “When the department moved to Warf-Pickel Hall, they took what used to be a student lounge on the top floor and converted it into an office, and Jack and I ended up sharing it. I mean there was absolutely no privacy in it, I mean there was no divider between us. It was him on one side and a bookcase between us and me on the other.”

The two worked together at ETSU for 25 years, Marshall describing them as the “power duo.” Even when Hilliard retired in 2004 and moved back to his hometown in Ohio, Mooney always stayed in touch.

“Jack never forgot me,” Hilliard said. “Never forgot me and my wife, and he frequently would call. He would send us newspaper clippings and tell us stories about the latest news developments about the university and about the department, and we always looked forward to that. We just treasured our contacts with him.”

Hilliard said he thought Mooney would never retire; it seemed that he would just always be at ETSU.

“After I had left the university and gone on to other things,” Hilliard said. “It always made me feel good when I returned to campus and he was still there, as kind of a landmark holding it all together after all those years.”

Hilliard described Mooney as practically living in the department. Whenever he would go into the office not during regular hours, Mooney would be there. Mooney loved the place, and he especially loved working with students, Hilliard said.

“Jack always had time—as much time as necessary for his students,” Hilliard said. “I mean, they loved him, and I could hear it when they came in and met with him in his office or talking to him on the phone. So, I think he leaves behind a fantastic legacy of positive effects on the lives of hundreds and hundreds of students who went through the department.”

Ducks Unlimited Communications Specialist Gregg Powers, a former student of Mooney’s, said Mooney played a big part in his journey at ETSU. Mooney taught Powers about AP style, brevity and the inverted pyramid, but he also taught him about how to treat people in interviews and in everyday life.

“So, not only the nuts and bolts, but like I said, the way he carried himself and how he taught,” Powers said. “That—to me—that showed me a lot about how you need to be doing your business in the business, so I just keep thinking about. There’s an old expression my mom used to use: ‘You can catch more flies with honey than you can vinegar.’ And that’s Dr. Mooney. To me, that was Dr. Mooney.”

Some of his favorite memories of Mooney included going to his office for advice, Mooney’s iconic Groundhog Day lecture and his comm law class, which Powers said although he did not enjoy taking a summer class at 8 a.m., Mooney made it interesting and he remembers that class more than anything.

Most of Powers’ memories of Mooney, however, were outside the classroom. Powers received the Johnson City Press scholarship and internship in 1994, and he eventually got a full-time job there. He said Mooney would always check on him, stopping by the newsroom to say hello.

“That’s the thing about Dr. Mooney,” Powers said. “Like I said, he became more than a teacher, he was always looking after you, seemed like.”

Lise Cutshaw, media and marketing coordinator for the ETSU Martin Center for the Arts – another former student and later colleague of Mooney’s, said he was a father figure for her. When she chose journalism, after having a couple different majors first, Mooney was one of her first professors, and she had him up until she graduated in 1981.

After she began working in the journalism business, she said he always stayed in touch, whether it was sending her notes about her articles when she worked at the Bristol Herald Courier or bringing her copies of the New York Times when she began working with the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts because he knew she loved the arts and entertainment section.

The two became colleagues in 1990, when Mooney reached out to her asking if she wanted to teach journalism classes at ETSU. Cutshaw decided she did and was initially hired as a journalism instructor and adviser to the East Tennessean and The Buccaneer. During that time, he was a mentor to her, and she learned lessons from him about being a caring teacher and person.

“He was such a wonderful example as a caring, thoughtful person, and teacher and supervisor,” Cutshaw said. “And I’ve had a lot of really good supervisors over the years. He is certainly right at the top.”

Mark Stevens, director of tourism development in Georgetown, South Carolina, and another one of Mooney’s former students, said Mooney was a “part of the fabric” of the department along with Hilliard and George Kelly.

Not only was Mooney one of several professors Stevens said he learned everything from at ETSU, but he also saw Mooney often after college. While Stevens was president of the Society of Professional Journalists, he noticed Mooney always attended the meetings.

Stevens said support from professors like Mooney helped set his entire career in motion. Stevens received the Johnson City Press scholarship and internship in the summer of 1989 and having that foot in the door later helped him secure a reporting job in 1991, within just a week after he graduated. By 1995 Stevens was an editor, and by 1997 he was a newspaper publisher.

“I had a great career, and so many other people did because of people like Dr. Mooney,” Stevens said.

Stevens said he spoke with Mooney a few months ago around Hilliard’s birthday. Hilliard’s wife was contacting people, asking them to send him birthday cards since no one could see him in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stevens was helping call people. Little did he know, Mooney was, too.

One night, Stevens’ phone rang, and it was Mooney. He hadn’t spoken to Mooney in years, as he now lives in South Carolina. Stevens said it was a great conversation; it was like they were sitting across from each other at a restaurant at a SPJ meeting, again.

“It was just one of those old friends talking to one another,” Stevens said. “Which is so strange when you think back to—for me—the late 80s and early 90s when I was a student and that you can say all these years later that those people, those professors became your friends. You certainly didn’t think of that back in the day, you know, that this person is going to be a friend. You put them up on this sort of pedestal, that they’re the professor. And they are, but it’s cool when later on they become your friends.”

Stevens wants Mooney to be remembered at ETSU as “one of the greats,” and Powers said he would love to see Mooney’s name in Warf-Pickel Hall in some way, shape or form, even if it is just a computer lab.

Cutshaw believes Mooney’s legacy will be carried on through the several generations of students he taught, who all take his legacy very seriously.

“I think those of us who had him as a teacher will take a lot of that information—I mean that’s part of us now—and it will continue to be, as long as we’re around,” Cutshaw said. “And as long as many of us continue to teach young folks, it will be passed down through the generations for as long as we keep sending it out.”

Hilliard hopes the department continues to publicize the Jack Mooney scholarship in honor of him, and he hopes that future students continue to learn the fundamentals of good, honest journalism, which he and Mooney were all about. Just as Mooney never forgot Hilliard, Hilliard hopes the same for Mooney and his legacy.

“I just hope that he’s never forgotten,” Hilliard said. “He loved that place so much. He put so much time and effort into it that he’s—as far as I’m concerned—legendary.”