Out in Greene County, Iowa

In the news business, you do it in good times, you do it in bad times, you do it all the time

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
February 4, 2008
COOPER, IOWA

On Friday night and early Saturday, January 25-26, e-mails from old friends like John Greenleaf and Evelyn Birkby around my hometown of Shenandoah in southwest Iowa began telling me about a disastrous fire raging then in the offices of the local newspaper, the Valley News Today. My first thought was hope – that somehow there’d be no one killed or injured. Miraculously, it turned out that way.

Then Valley News Today publisher David Gustafson asked if, as an alumnus of the Shenandoah newspaper, I would write a reflection on the fire and give his staff and the community some encouragement.

And that’s when my thoughts turned to the late Whitey Davis, a great newspaperman there in Shenandoah.

In the long, long ago, say the late 1950s, even before I became the boy sportswriter for the old Evening Sentinel, the predecessor newspaper to the VNT, I was a paper boy for the Sentinel. I delivered the much-coveted downtown route, carrying the newspaper into the stores in the business district, and to the offices and apartments up above them. Most of the carriers back then had their papers delivered to their homes by circulation manager Jack Funk, or one of his lieutenants. But since I delivered the downtown route, I’d ride my bicycle to the Sentinel, go in the back doors and pick-up my papers hot off the press.

That press was a huge, black, mysterious, old hulk. It had a sidewheel and drive shaft that looked like they had been stolen from a locomotive on either the Wabash or Burlington railroads coming through town. It was kept operating long beyond its normal life, I’m sure, because of the mechanical wizardry of one Richard “Whitey” Davis, the press foreman.

Every afternoon, Whitey, whose nickname came from his blond hair that eventually went silvery gray, and his production cadre that included Vince Valentine and others, would get that press cranked up. They would start running those Sentinels, hoping the paper “web” that was threaded through the press didn’t break, and turning the air blue when it did. Once they’d get the press humming at full speed, everybody would get busy counting newspapers, bundling them, throwing some of the bundles into mailbags, loading others into Jack Funk’s panel truck, and they’d hand off one bundle to the punk kid waiting to deliver them to all the downtown stores and offices.

Then one afternoon the damned thing broke. I don’t mean the web, I mean the press itself. Actually it broke on more than one afternoon. On those occasions, Whitey Davis repeatedly proved himself to be the real MVP in our newspaper operation. He’d get out big wrenches, long-snouted oil cans, maybe even baling wire and duct tape, and he’d get that baby running again. Except on this one afternoon, when none of the usual fixes would make it go again.

And it’s that afternoon I’m remembering, in connection with the fire at Valley News Today.

On that long ago day, when he couldn’t figure out any other way to restore power to the press, Whitey put in a phone call to the local Ford Tractor dealership. I think by then, one of Whitey’s golfing buddies Ed Brownson was running that dealership, out on U.S. Highway 59. Whitey must have asked Ed how wide those Ford tractors were, with their big rear wheels. I’m sure Ed had to measure one. Whitey told him to drive it uptown, and he’d have a ramp built so the tractor could be driven through the back doors of the Sentinel building. While the tractor was on its way, Whitey ordered the rearranging of several tables and other fixtures in the press room.

Then when the tractor arrived, they carefully drove it into the building, did a little pirouette with it, backed it up so it was right next to the press. As I recall, then they took off the left rear wheel, and made a direct axle hook-up to the big newspaper press. I was young, and this was a long time ago, so maybe they used the tractor’s “power takeoff,” if indeed there was one. But my memory is that they took the power directly from the axle after removing the wheel.

Then the best part: Whitey Davis told everyone to stand back, in case further disaster happened. He climbed up on the tractor seat, started up the tractor’s engine, eased it into gear and – what ho! – the big press started cranking. Whitey slowly boosted the tractor’s throttle, and the press ran faster! Newspapers began spitting out the east end of the press again, and the Sentinel hit the streets only an hour or so late!

I think Whitey and his gang used the tractor another couple of days before the press got fixed.

But on that afternoon, I got one of my best lessons in journalism: “Whatever it takes.”

Come what may, the press must roll. The newspaper must be produced and delivered to its readers.

When you’re in the news business, you do it in good times, you do it in bad times, you do it all the time.

That’s the lesson I’ve always tried to leave with journalism students whom I’ve taught or advised.

Now, more specifically for the Valley News Today staff and the people of the Shenandoah area, to heck with bricks and mortar, and computers and desks, and musty old bound volumes, and historic photo negatives – all lost in the fire. Painful and sorrowful as it must have been to watch all that burn, that’s the past.

The news is today, and it’s the people who make it, produce it and read it.

In Shenandoah, after this horrible fire, all the people are fine – the VNT staff, the courageous and exhausted fire fighters, the business neighbors and everybody else. In fact, maybe they’re all a little better than they were, given the inspiration and new appreciation for life they all surely have received.

And they are again realizing what a good newspaper really is – people.

There are the people who report, edit, shoot photos, sell the ads, do the make-up, run the presses, deliver the product – they’re all a big part of what a newspaper really is. And then there are all those readers who depend on the others’ good work; they are the readership, the audience, and they are an even bigger part of what a newspaper really is.

And in these days after the fire, they’re all still there together, needing each other.

Knowing small towns like I do, particularly my hometown of Shenandoah, I know that while the Valley News Today crew is scrambling to get back to good newspapering, there will be thousands of people across the area cheering them on.

And ol’ Whitey Davis will be looking down on all this, from that great golf course in the heavens, and giving a thumbs-up.


Chuck Offenburger was a paper boy for The Evening Sentinel in Shenandoah in 1958 and ’59. In the late spring of 1961, just as he was finishing eighth grade, he became the newspaper’s sportswriter, succeeding two older brothers who’d held that position when they were in their last two years of high school. Chuck continued writing sports and news for the Sentinel throughout his own high school years, won a journalism scholarship to Vanderbilt University, eventually returned to the Sentinel as managing editor for three years, then became a Des Moines Register reporter and columnist for 26 years. After leaving the Register in 1998, he has taught journalism and courses about Iowa in colleges and high schools. And as readers of Offenburger.com know, he now is a freelance writer working from a farm near Cooper in southern Greene County. You can write him at chuck@Offenburger.com.

In Shenandoah, the Valley News Today has moved its news and advertising operations into offices that were available in a former bank building, and has not missed a single day of publishing. The newspaper, which is published Tuesday through Sunday, is owned by Midland Newspapers, Inc., a division of the Omaha World-Herald Co. The VNT has been printing on central presses in Bellevue, Nebraska, and will continue to do so. The Shenandoah newspaper’s Internet site is www.valleynewstoday.com. You can e-mail the publisher and his staff at David.Gustafson@valleynewstoday.com.