What’s a Lanthorn?

Lanthorn is two syllables, pronounced lant-horn, and is old English for a particular lantern that was used mid-to-late 16th century Europe; it was a lantern made of horn.

It was constructed of leather and a single lens made of a slice of ox or steer horn. It was used for illumination and as a beacon.

The Grand Valley Lanthorn slogan is: Give light and the people will find their own way. This is borrowed from the slogan for Scripps-Howard newspapers, and it is a paraphrase from Dante’s “Purgatory,” XXII 67-69.

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GVL history in brief

The first student-run newspaper at Grand Valley State College was The Keystone, and the inaugural issue was Nov. 22, 1963. The Keystone issued its final edition on Jan. 21, 1966.

It was succeeded by another tabloid-sized newspaper, The Valley View, on Oct. 28, 1966, and it was published until June 6, 1968.

The Lanthorn began October 1968. The Internet edition, www.lanthorn.com, was established fall 1995, and it was the first online edition of a weekly Michigan collegiate newspaper.

The name changed to Grand Valley Lanthorn on Jan. 13, 2000, and GVL grew to broadsheet size on Aug. 27, 1997. It averaged 20-24 pages each week.

With the Aug. 29, 2005, publication, GVL expanded to a twice-weekly newspaper, circulating 8,000 copies of each edition on Allendale and Grand Rapids campuses.