Vermont Connecticut Royster was an American journalist, writer and editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal from 1958 to 1971.
Background
Mr. Royster was born on April 30, 1914 in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Son of Wilbur High and Olivette (Broadway) Royster.
He was named after his paternal grandfather. His distinctive first and middle names were the result of a family tradition of using the names of states for offspring, begun by his great-grandfather. In addition to his grandfather's unusual name, his great-uncles were named Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, Oregon Minnesota, and Iowa Michigan Royster. They were usually called by their first and middle initials. These names were so unusual that for many years they were printed in the Ripley's Believe It or Not! series of books.
Royster's father, Wilbur High Royster, owned and operated the Royster Candy Company in Raleigh, which in the early 1900s sold chocolate, peanut brittle, and other candies across the Carolinas and Virginia. His family also had a strong connection to the nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Mr. Royster's grandfather had taught Latin and Greek at the university, and his great-uncle Wisconsin Royster had helped create the medical school at UNC.
Education
Royster was a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1935; during his time at UNC he was a member of the Philanthropic Society and served as the editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel.
Soon after graduating, Mr. Royster moved to New York City and secured a job as a reporter for the New York City News Bureau, and a year later began his 61-year career with The Wall Street Journal.
His career at Journal was one of steady advancement: reporter, 1936; Washington correspondent, 1936-1940 and 1945-1946; editorial writer and columnist, 1946-1948; associate editor, 1948-1951; senior associate editor, 1951-1958; editor, 1958-1971; contributing editor, columnist, 1971-1996; editor emeritus, 1993-1996.
In 1940 Mr. Royster joined the United States Navy Reserve. During the Second World War he served as the captain of a US Navy destroyer, the USS Jack Miller, in the Pacific theater of the war. He rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy. The Jack Miller saw a considerable amount of combat against the Japanese Navy, and survived being caught in two typhoons. In early September 1945, Vermont Royster was among the first group of American officers to see the ruins of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, which had been destroyed by the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan. After the war ended Mr. Royster resumed his career at The Wall Street Journal.
After his retirement from the Journal, he became the Kenan Professor of Journalism and Public Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.