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Rommel retires

Public relations director, once a student, to step down after 35 years with Rider University

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
When Earle Rommel arrived on the Rider University campus in 1963, he thought he would spend four years at the school and graduate, then go on to a sports writing career for a newspaper.
   Little did Mr. Rommel realize he would spend most of his career at Rider as the assistant director of public information/sports information director, before ending his 35-year career as the director of public relations.
   "I really loved it. I stayed for 35 years," said Mr. Rommel, whose last day on the job is Friday — actually one day shy of his 35th anniversary. He began work Sept. 1, 1972 as assistant director of public information.
   In those three-plus decades, Mr. Rommel has seen plenty of changes as Rider University and Lawrence Township have grown up together side by side — from a small college to a large university, and from a semi-rural farming community to a suburban township.
   Mr. Rommel, who was raised in Ewing and who now resides in Hamilton, likes to recall his first days as a student in 1963 at what was then called Rider College. The school had just completed work on its new suburban campus, having moved from Trenton, where it was founded in 1865.
   "I remember the first week," Mr. Rommel, 62, said. "The freshmen had to wear purple and gold beanies for the first week. I wore mine for two days and I said, ‘That’s enough.’ I took it off."
   Mr. Rommel said the tradition of freshman beanies died sometime during the mid-1960s. The school colors also were changed from purple and gold to cranberry and white in 1988, he added. The school’s namesake, Andrew J. Rider, was a cranberry farmer, which prompted the change.
   Lawrence Township was basically a farming community, and the new college campus was built on a former farm, Mr. Rommel said. Traffic lights along Route 206 were non-existent, and I-95 had not yet been built. There were no shopping malls on Route 1. Nassau Park — the giant shopping mecca that is home to Wal-Mart, Target, Border’s and Home Depot, among others — was part of the Reed’s Sod Farm business.
   Mr. Rommel planned to major in history, but quickly changed his major to journalism. He worked at the Rider News and was the newspaper’s sports editor during his senior year. He also worked in the school’s public information office and traveled with Rider’s baseball and basketball teams.
   "I really felt journalism was my field," he said. "It was my real calling. If you want to get involved, you can do it right away (on the school newspaper). I always tell the students, ‘Write, don’t sit back. Build your portfolio.’"
   After he received his bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1967, his first job was the assistant sports editor for the North Penn Reporter. He soon moved over to the Trenton Times — as the Times of Trenton was known then — as a general assignment reporter. His career was interrupted by a visit to Vietnam, courtesy of the U.S. Army.
   When he returned after three years in the Army’s counterintelligence unit, he resumed his career at the Trenton Times. He was assigned to the education beat and spent every other Saturday as the newspaper’s police reporter. In between, he found time to cover high school football and basketball games for the newspaper.
   But it was the Trenton Times’ decision to keep him on the education beat, instead of allowing him to cover sports, which triggered Mr. Rommel’s move back to his alma mater. He couldn’t resist the offer to become the assistant director of public information and the assistant sports information director. He gradually moved up in the ranks to his present job as director of public relations.
   Rider University’s public relations office writes press releases and pitches story ideas about the university, its faculty and students to the media, Mr. Rommel said. Sometimes, those ideas actually make it into print. He pointed to one of his more recent successes — an article in The New York Times that highlighted the 11 sets of siblings who currently play sports at Rider. He suggested the story and the newspaper assigned a reporter to check it out.
   "Working with families and students is what I enjoy most," he said, adding that he feels satisfaction when he hears a student say his or her mother put a newspaper clipping about the student in a scrapbook.
   "I love placing faculty experts in the news," Mr. Rommel said. He pointed to political science professor David Rebovich, who is frequently quoted in election-related articles, and Gender Studies Department professor Myra Gutin, who is an expert on the first ladies — the wives of American presidents.
   John Suler, a professor in the psychology department, is an expert on the psychology of cyberspace and is often used as a resource, Mr. Rommel said. Jonathan Husch, who chairs the school’s geology, environmental and marine sciences department, was quoted in articles that were published nationwide last year following the floods on the Delaware River.
   "The media come to the professors for key articles," Mr. Rommel said. "The media consider them to be experts, and (that means) the experts are teaching the students. It reflects well on Rider University."
   Although Mr. Rommel will be leaving his post at Rider at the end of this week, he won’t be leaving the school. At a recent retirement party, he said, his friends and colleagues bought him a pair of season tickets — and reserved seats with his name on them — for the Rider University basketball season.
   "Sports is my first love," he said. "I thought, ‘Wow, what a present.’ I thought they were joking about (putting my name on the seats), but they were not joking. I like many sports, but basketball is an important sport at Rider."
   Retirement also will leave Mr. Rommel plenty of time to tackle his favorite hobby — freshwater fishing. As a cup on the shelf in his office says, "A bad day fishing is better than a good day working."