Hunter S. Thompson is viewed by many as the man who began gonzo journalism. His article in Scanlan’s Monthly in June 1970 titled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Deprived” has been seen as the true birth of the unique brand of journalism. Before that article, he already had established himself as a writer. He had written a book – that is what gave him international acclaim – and had also written for several newspapers and magazines.

            Thompson had an interest in literature from his days in high school, or rather his days outside of high school. He would regularly skip class with his buddies to meet in a café to drink beer while reading and discussing Plato. His future wasn’t as a philosopher, but as a journalist.

            Thompson never officially graduated from high school. He was not allowed to take his final exams while he was serving time in jail for being an accessory to armed robbery. He eventually enlisted in the military.

            He said that his writing is what got him out of trouble during his time in the Air Force. After he had enlisted and been through basic training, he was sent to work on electronics equipment. It was an eight-month schooling that he said was very intense. Though he liked it, he wanted to get back to what he was doing before: pilot training. He enjoyed it more, and was afraid of electricity.

            It was 1956 when Thompson transferred to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He went to the education office and signed up for classes at Florida State University. He would then search for literary jobs and learned about the opening of the sports editor position at the base newspaper. The previous editor was a staff sergeant who had a habit of having a few too many and urinating on buildings. Ultimately, the staff sergeant’s third time being caught in the act had him removed from his position as editor.

            Once he heard about the opportunity, Thompson said that he had been the editor of his high school paper (he was not). He spent the night poring over three journalism books from the library until it closed. He said that within two weeks he had the entire job down. He then worked for the local newspaper in addition to working for the base paper. He got in trouble with the Air Force for various articles he would write, constantly violating regulations.

            It was due to his writing that he received an honorable discharge from his service. As he put it, he’d “broken the Bart Starr story.” Bart Starr played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Bart Starr story that Thompson was referencing was how Starr made his way out of the military and onto the football field.

            Starr had already proven himself as an All-American at the University of Alabama, and was headed to Eglin. He had served during the Korean War, and was going to play on the Eglin Eagles. News came down that Starr was in fact not going to play on the Eagles. Thompson decided he was going to figure out why the up-and-coming superstar wasn’t going to suit up.

            Thompson broke into an office on the base to try and find the information. What he found, he leaked out: Starr was receiving a medical discharge so that he could play professional football. Now, it is unclear whether Starr was actually injured or not, but it was a “major leak” and the biggest story of Thompson’s young career. It was known that Starr had dealt with a back injury that caused him to miss most of his senior season at Alabama, but he was able to play in the final game of the season in a relief role.

            When he eventually received his honorable discharge, he applied for a job at Sports Illustrated. He felt that breaking the Starr story and being a sports editor for two separate papers was enough to get him a job as a journalist there. He was told that instead of looking at what a reporter has done, SI writers were judged instead by who they had done the work for. “Our writers are all Pulitzer Prize winners from The New York Times. This is a helluva place for you to start. Go out into the boondocks and improve yourself.”

            The closest Hunter ever got to a Pulitzer was when he wrote an exposé on the Roxanne Pulitzer divorce for Rolling Stone. Pulitzer was married to the heir to Pulitzer Inc., Herbert Pulitzer, son of Joseph Pulitzer.

            Hunter was still determined to become a journalist. He found that he not only enjoyed it, but was good at it from his time just outside of Valpariso, Fla. working for two papers.

            His next stop was in Pennsylvania. Hunter spent several weeks writing for the Jersey Shore Times, but he did not last long there. He wrecked a car that belonged to another writer, and instead of sticking around he fled to New York, where he felt most at home.

            He felt free. He could roam the streets drunk if he felt like it. He had friends who were living up in New York. He took evening classes after getting a job at Time magazine as a copy boy.

            He eventually quit school, and after over two years was fired from his copy boy job at Time. He pushed hard to get a promotion to work in the field, but he never received the promotion, and he started dragging his feet on the job.

            After a summer of unemployment, he used a connection with a former editor of Time to beef up his resume and to get a job at The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York. He lasted at that job two months before he took a hammer to a candy vending machine and was subsequently fired.

            He bounced around America for a while at several different gigs, but he finally found a place that he could call his own.

            The National Observer was Thompson’s next stop in the media business. It was a relatively new weekly newspaper. He mailed in a packet with news snippets and a paper that introduced who Thompson was. Thompson continued his theme of lying to get his jobs: he was now a seasoned reporter on his way to South America only looking for a paper to put his byline in. Naturally, Thompson spent the next year reporting from Latin America.

            He then moved back to the US and began reporting on domestic affairs for the Observer. After a while, he got himself involved in the drug culture in San Francisco, after experimenting with a variety of different drugs during his year in Latin America. He for an underground paper by the name of The Spyder for a short time.

            Then in 1965, The Nation hired Thompson to write Hell’s Angels, and from there his journalism career skyrocketed. He eventually began what became known as gonzo journalism with the famous "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved."

Brinkley, Douglas, and Terry McDonell. "Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1." Paris Review. The Paris Review, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

Homberger, Eric. "Hunter S Thompson." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 22 Feb. 2005. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.

Perry, Paul. Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1992. Google Books. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Thompson, Hunter S., Beef Torrey, and Kevin Simonson. Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 2008. Google Books. Web.

Thompson, Hunter S. "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved." Scanlan's Monthly June 1970: n. pag. Brianb.freeshell. Web.