A House of Character

By Danny Bobbe
J-School Web Reporter

photo by Lizz Rauf
This small, unassuming building is world headquarters for UM R-TV students and faculty.

Once upon a time there was a little white house that sat on a small lot on the University of Montana campus. It was similar to many other houses in Missoula: built in the 1920s with bedrooms, a kitchen, a fireplace and a bathtub. But it was also quite different.

That’s because sometime after being purchased by UM in the 1970s it became infested with journalists. Over the years they turned what could have been a comfortable habitat for a family of five into a hive of media activity. The fireplace was sealed, the bathtub and shower were dismantled and the kitchen, generally, was given a limited role of preparing coffee and popcorn.

The house, simply referred to as 730 Eddy or just Eddy, still stands, but its future is unclear. One thing is certain though: all journalists will soon be evicted.

This fall’s opening of Anderson Hall will bring an end to the 730 Eddy era. For many teachers and students in the R-TV Department the feelings are bittersweet.

Office manager Wanda LaCroix, for example, has worked in the house for seven years. From her desk near the front door she offers warm greetings to the house’s visitors.

Her new office in Anderson Hall will be on the fourth floor and she worries that her interactions with students and guests may be limited.

“I’m real ambivalent,” LaCroix said.

Ray Ekness, chair of the Radio-Television Department, agrees. “One of the main downsides is going to be access to the students,” he said.

Because every space in Eddy is used to its fullest, students and professors have little choice but to be in constant interaction with each other. In the new building, professors will nest in the fourth floor and Ekness worries that students who want to hide from the watchful eye of their mentors will be able to do so.

But there are advantages as well, said Ekness, pointing out a spot on his office ceiling that has had significant rain damage. When hard rains fall in Missoula, Ekness is forced to move his TV/VCR from the corner below the leak.

“When you think 'house' you think family. Because of this house we’ve become like a family on the broadcast side,” Ekness said.

UM has recently received permission from the state and city to put the house on the market. It must go so the Law School building can expand. One scenario is that the house will be lifted from its foundation, moved to a new location and then converted back into living quarters, said campus architect Jameel Chaudhry. 

Students like Travis Morss, an RTV-production senior, find it hard to picture Eddy ever being a typical house again.

“I can’t wrap my mind around there not being computers and desks everywhere,” he said.

But because much of the work created by broadcast students is brewed in the basement of Eddy, it is, in a way, a home to many students.

“There have been a few nights where I’ve slept here,” said RTV-production senior Marcus Chebul.

“We had one student who didn’t live in an apartment and was sleeping on the couch a lot,” said LaCroix. “That was the first year I was here.”

While the questionable cleanliness of 730 Eddy’s furniture may be reason enough to avoid spending the night, ghosts may be another.

Brandi Laubach, a visiting professor who graduated from the J-School in 1999, has had several close encounters of the mysterious kind in Eddy.

Laubach has heard footsteps coming from an upstairs storage area while being certain it was unoccupied. She also had an experience where two chairs in her office moved by themselves, she said.

Some believe Eddy may be inhabited by the ghost of former R-TV chair and Acting Dean Joe Durso Jr.

Some of Durso’s belongings were left in his office after he passed away in 1998 and Ekness moved in. While working late in the evening Ekness occasionally heard noises he couldn’t explain. Eventually Durso’s items were moved to the attic and the noises began to come from there, Ekness said.

“I like to say it was Joe looking for his pipe because that's where we stored it,” Ekness said. 

Character such as this is hard to come by in brand-new buildings. And many in the R-TV Department are well aware of this.

“This is kind of a cool place to hang out. The new building doesn’t have the homey feeling Eddy has,” said Morss.

But other students are ready to leave the past behind and look toward the future.

“If this building comes down I want to have a sledgehammer in hand and I want to knock out a load-bearing pillar,” said Chebul.

Back to J-School main page.