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| Pat Korten, Washington Journalist - Founder of the Badger Herald |
He was one of the most influential men in the history of the University of Wisconsin - a terribly influential man in the history of the US Conservative movement - and an extremely influential man in my life.
Pat Korten founded the Badger Herald alternative conservative student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin.
This happened in 1969 - when the ridiculous Democrat LBJ's war in Vietnam was raging, when campuses nationwide were torn apart and when left-wing terrorists had blown up a building on the UW-Madison campus, murdering an innocent math researcher in the process.
The campus student newspaper, that had been in business since 1848 - The Daily Cardinal - had been hijacked, by a gaggle of left-wing nutcases - who were essentially Maoist in orientation.
Pat Korten - a UW sophomore at the time decided - "We've had enough!"
With just a vision and a stalwart philosophic guidepost, Pat went forward.
With several UW fellows, he began publishing a conservative editorial sheet entitled, "Insight and Outlook."
That went on for a year, and then, the boys decided that their efforts would be more effective, if they sandwiched their conservative commentary between campus news and sports and fine arts coverage.
The Badger Herald was born.
It was not an easy matter.
The UW was still seething with neo-fascist left-wing rage (much as it is today). And Pat Korten and the early conservative writers on the Badger Herald staff, had to install metal cyclone fencing onto the back window of the Badger Herald offices at 618 State Street in Madison. Left-wing fascists had threatened to fire-bomb the Badger Herald offices in retaliation for their conservative writings.
So much for the "Progressives" respect for free speech and freedom of the press.
Pat Korten, and his fellow conservative Badger Herald writers, brought sleeping bags into the Herald editorial offices - and announced to the Leftists and to the Madison Police, that they would be sleeping there at night - and a fire-bombing by the Left-wing fascists would be tantamount to murder.
They held off the leftists.
As years went on, Pat Korten's brainchild went on - and held on - and by the 1980s, became the dominant student newspaper on the UW campus.
In recent years the Badger Herald has been hijacked by multiculturalist - left-wing nut cases and is barely a shadow of what it once was.
Pat Korten - the founder of the Badger Herald. went on to become a top-notch radio journalist at the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC., WTOP, a press secretary for innumerable members of the US Congress, a founder and manager of a major conservative radio network and a renowned spokesman for the National Catholic, Knights of Columbus.
He was one of the finest men that I have ever known
And just as Thomas Jefferson eschewed all of his various titles to put on his gravestone, the simple:
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Founder of the University of Virginia
I think it would be wonderful and fitting if were proclaimed on Pat Korten's gravestone, the simple:
PATRICK KORTEN
Founder of the Badger Herald
God bless you and keep you, Pat!
