How it all began...

It was 1955 in her fifth grade class at Kennedy-Silverton School when Judy McCarty Kuhn first realized her love and talent for writing. “Our teacher, Miss Martha Fusshippel, was a published poet who encouraged us to write. We all wrote Christmas stories, and she typed them up and ran off a little book for us. I fell in love with writing that year.”

“When we went on to the sixth grade, Miss Fusshippel pulled me aside and said, ‘Someday you will be an author.’”

Judy, who grew up in Kenwood, continued her love of writing at the University of Cincinnati where she worked on the student newspaper, the News Record. In 1966-67, she became Editor-in-Chief. Just recently, she published The Other UC and Me: Editing the Sixties about her experiences as Editor during the Vietnam Conflict.

“Back in the mid-sixties, most of the country associated ‘UC’ with UC Berkeley or UCLA. We were ‘the other UC,’” says Judy. “Berkeley was the hotbed of protest and UCLA (with super-star Lew Alcindor) was the sports mecca.

“Those of us on the News Record had a front row seat to the events of the day. We covered every protest march, speech, and sporting event; we read and published University press releases; and we interviewed important leaders of the University, the community, and the nation. Controversy filled the air. As we lived history, we also tried to make sense of it. In many ways, we edited the sixties as well as editing in the sixties.”

Bruce Rheins, CBS News producer and former Kenwood resident, wrote the foreword to the memoir. He stated, “It takes a strong leader and staff to sort through the pros and cons of a controversial position and report on what they see and discover without outside pressure. That is Judy McCarty Kuhn’s story—interspersed with the details of how to navigate the rest of college, during a time when women were slowly being accepted as leaders.”

Like Miss Fusshippel, Judy became a Cincinnati teacher. She taught history at Aiken High School where she advised the yearbook, The Peregrine. From 1970-1997, she taught English and journalism at Walnut Hills High. At Walnut Hills, she advised the literary magazine, The Gleam; and the Walnut Hills newspaper, The Chatterbox. When cable TV came to Cincinnati, Judy and her students produced community programs. She also co-authored Cincinnati Public School’s journalism curriculum.

The Other UC and Me; Editing the Sixties is available at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Rookwood, and www.micropressbooks.com. A Kindle edition is sold through www.Amazon.com. The book will also be sold at 2017 Books By the Banks, Duke Energy Center, Cincinnati.

Miss Fusshippel would be proud.