Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Inventory of the
Governor and the Students Videotape Series, 1973-1974
84078
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title:
The Governor and the Students videotape series
Date (inclusive): 1973-1974
Collection Number: 84078
Physical Description:
1 manuscript box and 77 videotapes
(27.4 linear feet)
Contributing Institution:
Hoover Institution Archives
Language of Material:
English
Abstract: Videotape cassettes and selected transcripts of broadcasts of a televised series of question-and-answer sessions with high
school students conducted by Ronald Reagan as governor of California, relating to California state political issues. Produced
by JRH and Associates, Inc.
Collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item],
The Governor and the Students videotape series, 1973-1974, [Box number if appropriate], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1984.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
Deaver & Hannaford records, Hoover Institution Archives
Ronald Reagan described
The Governor and the Students this way:
"During my last two years in office we had a program in cooperation with the department of education. Each week a different
high school class would come to the Capitol and I would field their questions (or try to) for one hour. The program was entirely
unrehearsed. I would meet them only a few minutes before we actually started and, of course, had no preview of their questions.
"The hour was taped for television and made available for closed circuit classroom use in all of California's 1100-plus school
districts. It was also played on the educational TV network." [Box 1; original source unidentified]
The program gave Reagan a way to connect with young people. Modeled on the press conference format, the idea for the show
originated with Reagan aides Michael K. Deaver and Joseph R. Holmes. High school students were chosen over college students
on the theory that they lived with their parents, had not been exposed to liberal college professors, and would therefore
be more polite and less radical.
The shows were taped on a weekday after school, and the videotapes were distributed to TV stations in California to air at
no cost. While most were public broadcast stations, it aired on a commercial station in Visalia because there was no public
broadcast station in that area. The series was produced by JRH and Associates in Sacramento. The name Young People's Television
(YPTV) is also associated with this program.
Source: John H. Fund, "Leave It to Deaver: 'Close Reagan Aide Dies.' I Remember Him from High School,"
Jewish World Review, 20 August 2007,
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/fund082007.php3 .
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection consists of videotapes and selected transcripts of broadcasts of a televised series of question-and-answer
sessions with high school students conducted by Ronald Reagan as governor of California, relating to California state political
issues.
Transcripts are available for ten programs, and lists of questions asked by the students are available for another ten shows.
Labels on the videotapes provide limited information about their contents. Fully identifying each tape by date and version
is dependent on, and limited by, its label. Some tapes are labeled as opening and closing credits sequences. Based on the
videotape labels, it appears that the programs are about 30 minutes in duration.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
JRH and Associates, Inc.
Reagan, Ronald
California--Politics and government--1951-
Videotapes