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THE COURIERPAGE � SUnday, JanUaRy 18, 2009www.wcfcourier.comThe courier's 150Th anniversary

Longtime employees helped craft pages in Courier history

By EMILY CHRISTENSENCourier Staff Writer

WATERLOO — Dave Martin remembers the days when he would watch wire copy come across the teletype machine one letter at a time.

Today, national news comes to his computer, ready to print, just moments after it happens.

Though technology has changed in the past 40 years, Martin’s pas-sion for his job has not.

“Every day is not the same. I don’t know what is going to hap-pen when I walk into the building,” said Martin, copy desk chief.

Martin has many memories of his four decades with the newspaper, but there are a few stories that stick out in his mind — like the day he watched his draft number come across the wire or the time he handed a story to the wire editor about an Iowan who had died in Vietnam. The man who died had been a good friend of the former Courier editor and the story broke the news to him.

Larry Orth, information technol-ogy manager, also spent some of his years at The Courier in the teletype room.

“The sound of that machine … It was in the room where sports is now. People would walk in and scare me because all I could hear was the teletype machine,” he said.

Orth, who began working for The Courier in March 1966, said the only thing he knew about newspa-pers back then was that he could find one in the library. But he didn’t need a knowledge of the newspaper industry to run the switchboard or do janitorial work.

“I remember the first day I worked the switchboard by myself; it was one of the old ones and I unplugged Mr. McCoy (the pub-lisher),” Orth said. “Thankfully, he came out of his office smiling.”

At that time, The Courier was a family-owned business. Orth said he was always impressed that McCoy took the time to truly get to know employees and their

families.“He wanted everyone to feel like

this was their business,” Orth said. “That’s part of the reason I never looked for another job.”

It also helped that his job descrip-tion changed every few years. Orth was hired by The Courier full time in 1967 after graduating from Gates Business College. He did account-ing work for the business office until the newspaper purchased its first computer. After completing two weeks of computer courses, Orth was writing programs from scratch for the new machine — the first IBM 34 in Northeast Iowa.

About the same time, Don Schwab, a graphic artist in The Courier’s creative department, was making his mark on The Courier, literally. Schwab was one of more than 70 linotype setters in the late ’60s. He remembers the days when

The Courier offered adver-tisers only one color — red — and when he would typeset the Montgom-ery Ward and Sears ads.

Eventually, the dated linotype machines gave

way to new technology, and the department was depleted to about a dozen employees.

Yet through all the technological changes and the outside factors — like this summer’s flood — Schwab cannot remember a day when The Courier failed to print.

“I used to walk into work in the snow,” he said. “And I waded through floodwaters to get here this summer.”

Despite ownership changes, lay-offs and evolving job descriptions, these men said they couldn’t imag-ine being anywhere else for the past 40 years.

“It felt like we were a part of his-tory here, even though we were only reporting on it and not mak-ing it,” Martin said.

Contact Emily Christensen at (319) �91-1570 or emily.christensen@wcfcourier.com.

Dave Martincopy desk

chief

Larry Orthinformation technology

manager

Don Schwabcreative department

graphic artist

Courier timeline1845: First permanent settlers arrive

in Black Hawk County, establishing Stur-gis Falls (Cedar Falls) and Prairie Rapids Crossing (Waterloo).

1851: Prairie Rapids Crossing’s name is changed to “Waterloo” when the first post office is established by Charles Mullan.

1854: Waterloo becomes the county seat of Black Hawk County; John H. Leavitt establishes the first bank in Waterloo.

1861-1865: Civil War forces financial and operating hardships on Courier as many employees enlist.

1868: On June 22, Waterloo officially becomes a city after its citizens vote to incorporate. R.a. Whitaker becomes the first mayor.

1879: On Sept. 11, the Cedar Valley Tribune begins publication. Its name is later changed to the Waterloo Tribune.

Electricity and gas are first introduced in Waterloo.

1880: Telephone service comes to Waterloo.

1884: In September, Professor Thom-as Tobin founds Waterloo College, which later becomes the Waterloo Business College (also known as Gates Business College).

1886: The Waterloo Water Works be-gins operation, providing running water to the citizens of Waterloo.

1890: dec.13, Courier becomes a daily paper, published every day except Sunday.

1906: Miss Margaret Van Metre, daughter of Isaiah Van Metre (one of the founders of the Waterloo Tribune), becomes first female reporter and first society editor for The Courier.

1910: The population of Waterloo grows to 26,693.

The national dairy Cattle Congress is first held in Waterloo.

19�0: Courier circulation is 15,661, according to an advertisement in McCoy’s Waterloo City directory.

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19�3: The Courier moves to its pres-ent location at Commercial Street and Park avenue from the building that later becomes Gates Business College.

19�6: The Courier installs a new duplex Web-perfecting Unitype press, which is capable of printing 37,250 papers an hour.

Lou Henry Hoover, who grew up in Waterloo, becomes first lady when her husband, Herbert Hoover, is elected president.

1930: Circulation of the Courier is at 21,135.

1931: The Courier’s Saturday after-noon editions are discontinued in favor of a Sunday morning edition.

1933: Courier circulation declines as the Great depression takes hold in the area.

1934: On June 7, Tommy Carroll, a member of bank robber John dillinger’s gang, is shot and killed in Waterloo.

1939: On Sept. 1, Germany invades Poland, beginning WWII.

1946: Thousands of fans venture out to the new Municipal Stadium to welcome baseball and the White Hawks back to town.

Bob Hope appears at a show spon-sored by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls aMVETS.

1947: The Waterloo Museum of art is founded.

R.J. McElroy founds KWWL and the Black Hawk Broadcasting Co.

1948: On May 19, strikes are followed by rioting at Rath Packing Co.

1950: Waterloo’s population is 65,198.

United auto Workers stage a 109-day strike at John deere.

1951: On april 14, 25 people sign a petition saying they want to start a new town, Elk Run Heights, east of Evansdale.

Phyllis Singer starts at The Courier as a reporter.

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More COuRIER TIMELINE, page 10

On the coverThe Waterloo daily Courier building in 1928.

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By DENNIS MAGEECourier Regional Editor

WATERLOO — He entered the business world as a fresh-faced high school student. Now 94 years old, Corky Boylan had no illusions about his station in life in the early 1930s.

He hawked The Courier on street corners to powerful businessmen, travelers and others circulating in Waterloo’s hub. Most barely took note of the kid with the stack of newspapers.

“You were just a poor little paper guy who was trying to sell papers,” he says.

But Boylan remembers being part of something dynamic — a bustling downtown where literally everyone went.

“It was a thriving area. ... It was a pretty busy little town.”

With features not seen for decades — street cars, movie theaters, gro-cery stores and daily round-trip service to Chicago by train.

Variations of Waterloo’s histor-ic downtown remain, including banks, a cigar store, hotels, restau-rants and retail shops. Boylan also sounds a 75-year-old refrain about downtown that may sound familiar in 2008.

“It had a parking problem back then,” he says.

The newspaper was near the cen-ter of the entire scene. Boylan started selling The Courier in 1931, about two years before graduating from East High School. He paid 1 1/2 cents per issue and turned around to sell each for 3 cents.

The newspaper only published on weekdays. A standard effort would be selling perhaps a dozen papers after school and before 6 p.m. An outstanding effort would be 20, Boylan says.

“‘Courier paper’ — and yell the story that was the hot one for the day — ‘Get the whole story,’” he remembers.

Patrons paid in nickels and dimes.

“They expected their 2 cents or their 7 cents change,” Boylan says.

His wife, Arlene, grew up on a farm northeast of Waterloo. She attended Bennington No. 8, a one-room schoolhouse and graduated from Dunkerton High School in 1935.

Arlene also remembers down-town Waterloo as the heart of a bustling metropolis. Her mother

sewed for people, and family vis-its to the big city represented an adventure.

“That was exciting,” she says. Corky served in the Army dur-

ing World War II, leading African-American soldiers in the China-Burma-India theater. He left the service as a captain.

Arlene, now 90, worked in a photo studio in the Black’s Build-ing. She remembers a few head-lines from the era, one in particular at the conclusion of the war. It stat-ed simply what Americans, weary

from years of conflict, sacrifice and loss, yearned for most of all. A single word spread across page one on Aug. 14, 1945, in 6-inch let-ters: PEACE!

“I saved that to show to him when he got home,” Arlene says.

Jim Clabby, 76, remembers many highlights from the downtown dis-trict’s heyday. Most of the town’s doctors practiced in the Black’s Building, and elevator operators helped folks find the right floor.

Clabby worked in the meat department at Piggly Wiggly. There was a pool hall upstairs and others around downtown, but he recalls a fellow would have to go looking for trouble in Waterloo in those days.

One notable figure managed to, nonetheless. Tommy Carroll worked for John Dillinger, a noto-rious bank robber and America’s Public Enemy No. 1 at the time. Carroll met his end on June 7, 1934, in an alley in downtown Waterloo after firing at a pair of plainclothes detectives.

Folks who knew the story even years later frequently took a detour off the main streets to look for the bullet holes, Clabby says.

His own history includes a bit of mischief. By throwing a rope over the electric line, a prankster could disable a street car. The stunt was not popular with operators, recalls

Clabby, who says he participated once.

“I can still see the conductor out there — mad as hell — with a flashlight,” Clabby says.

Waterloo’s downtown district isn’t the business center it once was. Many retail businesses, including Sears and J.C. Penney, moved to Crossroads Mall. Clabby remembers that area of town as something else, however.

“It was a cornfield,” he says.

Boylan remembers his time on the streets selling The Courier fondly and the hustling downtown business district as a bright era. He hopes the newspaper’s connec-tion continues with the city.

“I would sure hate to see the town without The Courier,” he says.

Contact Dennis Magee at (319) 291-1�51 or dennis.magee@wcfcourier.com.

tHE cOURIER'S 150tH aNNIVERSaRY

Downtown Waterloo was place to be in 1930s

DENNIS MAGEE / Courier Regional Editor

Corky Boylan, 9�, once sold The Courier on downtown Waterloo street corners.

CouRIER ARChIvES

Arlene Boylan of Waterloo remembers a few Courier headlines from the past, like this one from Aug. 1�, 19�5.

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By JACK HOVELSONFor The Courier

It was a little more than 80 years ago that New York play-wrights Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur authored the Broad-way hit comedy “The Front Page” lampooning the flamboyant, sometimes outrageous, nature of newspaper reporting in the roar-ing ’20s.

It was journalism in the raw at the time, a culture of cockiness played out by a cast of devil-may-care hard-drinkers hell-bent for scoops, sensationalism and a seat at the bar.

By the early 1950s, the hijinks of those legendary days had vir-tually disappeared — as well they should have — into an era of responsibility and fair-ness. Fortunately, however, The Waterloo Courier newsroom a half-century ago retained just enough of the flamboyant flavor of those bygone times to whet my appetite for a 40-year career in newspapering.

I was in my third year at Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) when I got the opportunity to work part time in the sports department at The Courier. Already I was toiling afternoons and late Saturday nights in the newspaper’s mailroom to pay my way through school. Now I was to get two Courier paychecks, but the newsroom job was more for the experience and being part of a news gathering/writing oper-ation than it was for the money.

The Courier’s second-floor newsroom in 1952 had big win-dows overlooking the intersec-

tion of Commercial Street and Park Avenue. A few years later, after The Courier added a floor and renovated much of the rest of the building, I questioned why it had covered all that revealing glass with aluminum, preventing those inside who were obligated to reporting on what was going on outside from seeing what was going on outside.

It was noisy in that old news-room with sounds I wish I could have recorded for background

noise on my home telephone answering machine.

Rickety upright L.C. Smith and Underwood typewriters clattered, a ticker-tape machine on a shelf over the sports desk clicked off game scores by the innings and quarters. A police radio behind the city editor’s chair squawked incessantly. Associated Press, United Press and International News service tele-typewriters rat-tled out whatever was going on in the world onto rolls of yellow

paper that spilled from the vibrat-ing machines onto the floor. All this was accompanied by inter-ruptions of laughter, grousing, jangling telephones and, yes, an occasional four-letter word that

couldn’t go into the newspaper.To me, the blend was music.Complementing the audible

atmosphere was its appearance. Green and gray in various shades were the predominant colors of the desks, floors and walls. Green also was the color of the eyeshade worn by the aging wire editor who was as much an icon of the past as anyone in the newsroom. Woody, as he was known, said little but when he did speak it usually came out grumpy. Much of that was excusable because an affliction had left Woody with only two or three fingers on each hand.

Young part-time sports writ-ers, unfortunately, were assigned a desk close to Woody. It was a precarious place because any movement of my chair more than 8 inches to the rear resulted in a bump into Woody. No matter how slight, the collision almost always prompted an outburst from the wire desk. The bottom right-hand drawer of that desk, incidentally, housed a pint of Four Roses bour-bon that was tapped more than once during the day.

Every Saturday around 10 p.m. — after the Sunday edition was put to bed — a poker game broke out on the wire desk finally cleared of the stacks of yellow wire copy.

THE COURIER's 150TH annIvERsaRy

Courier of yesteryear had a grungy glamour

Courier file photo

In the late 1950s, the Waterloo Daily Courier announced “Big News” — the arrival of colored comics.

See HOVELSON, page 7

Sunday, January 18, 2009 THE COurIEr PAGE �www.wcfcourier.com THE COURIER's 150TH annIvERsaRy

Woody was not the only icon-ic character in that newsroom. There was City Editor Ken Mur-phy, whose frumpy appearance disguised a steel-trap brain loaded with wit and acumen that made him a proverbial legend in his own time. When Republican-lean-ing editors one day celebrated a revelation about Harold Hughes’ drinking and predicted it would be the Iowa Democrat governor’s downfall in an impending elec-tion, Murphy forecast it other-wise, claiming it would spark a sympathetic reaction from “all those people who’ve been there.”

Hughes won the election, going away.

Bill Dunlevy began his news-paper career while still an East Waterloo High student. By the time he was a full-time fire/police reporter at The Courier, he had established himself as a swash-buckling, flashing-red-light chas-er who sometimes would arrive at crime scenes before the cops. He would ride fire trucks to fires and fearlessly wade into danger-

ous venues to come out with exclusive stories and photos. If anyone on the staff was a throw-back to the “Front Page,” it was Dunlevy. He moved on to bigger newspapers out East where the action came more often and more hazardous.

Bob Case was an up-and-com-ing young Courier reporter who got called into active duty in the Korean War and came back to ultimately become U.S. Rep. H.R. Gross’ top assistant in Washing-ton. His love of newspapering drew him back to The Courier when Gross left Congress, and Case went on to become a highly respected political writer noted for his fairness to all politicians despite his many years under the wing of a staunchly conservative Republican. Stricken while speak-ing about politics at a high school assembly, Case’s untimely death a few days later deprived Courier readers of many more informed insights into Iowa politics.

The Speed Graphic was another newsroom fixture of the ’50s.

Actually, it technically wasn’t a “fixture,” in that the big cumber-some old camera went wherever the paper’s staff photographers and reporters ventured on their

assignments. Attached to the camera was a shiny tube that held D-batteries to fire the flashbulbs in a reflector atop the tube. One had to avoid carrying the Speed Graphic by the flash attachment — I recall an upbraid from head photographer Bruce Palmer for doing that — because the battery-holder could detach, sending the camera crashing to the ground.

The other problem with the Speed Graphic — a flub prob-ably experienced by anyone who wrestled with the bulky camera at some time or other — was forget-ting to pull out the film-protect-ing slide from a 4-by-5-inch film holder after it had been slammed into the back of the camera. I did this a few times, most memorably the day Art Linkletter allowed me to photograph him with my 5-year-old daughter, who I had taken with me on that exciting assignment. That was the prob-lem — I was too excited and forgot to pull the slide. No picture exists of my little girl with the famous radio-television personal-ity when he was in Waterloo one Saturday back in the early ’60s.

A swinging door separated the newsroom from the composing room, which today is only a mem-

ory of the times when newspa-per pages were inked by heavy curved press plates fashioned from molten lead. The composing room had an aroma of its own, some from gases arising from the hot lead in rows of linotype machines that clanked out single lines of words that collected in a galley to be nested in a page-size frame that was the first vision of what readers would see when they opened their papers later that day. More people worked in the composing room than in any other department. Computers wiped out those jobs.

I didn’t see The Courier news-room for more than six years while I was off to the Army, teaching a couple of years and spending a year as a Fort Dodge Messenger reporter before returning to Waterloo in 1960 as a full-time general assignment reporter. I was pleased to see several familiar faces, hold-overs from my part-time sports desk days: Managing Editor Gene Thorne, Sports Editor Al Ney and his top assistant, Russ Smith; feature writer/columnist Patty Johnson, Women’s Editor Phyllis Singer, political writer/columnist Bill “Iron Duke” Severin, edito-

rial writer Dave Dentan. I was especially glad to see City Editor Murphy in one corner, his wit and wisdom with him as always.

Longtime reporters Francis Veach and Stan Bruner, both in the twilight of their careers, were still around, but Woody, the old wire editor, was gone. I must admit I sort of missed him and his grumpiness. His successor was a high-energy former police report-er, Dave Seltzer, who remains indelible in my memory because of a momentous event that hap-pened three years later.

Gone in 1960 was the old sec-ond-floor newsroom accessible from The Courier’s main entrance via a long, dark green stairway. In its place was a brightly lit, glass-partitioned room, served by an elevator, that had more than twice the floor space of the old newsroom. It was nice, but I couldn’t see outside.

“The post office across the street (now the city library) could be burning down and we wouldn’t know it,” I muttered more than once.

Nobody ever paid much attention.

HOVELSONFrom page 6

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For five working hours, Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, was another of those proverbial slow news days. I prowled the Black Hawk County Courthouse that morning search-ing for something to write about, but a Thanksgiving-time lull had left me with a bare notebook. Wire Editor Seltzer and I were finishing our noon lunches in a room off the newsroom when the door flew open and there was City Editor Murphy.

I’d never seen him move so fast, nor his face so contorted.

“Dave! Dave!” he shouted. “The president’s been shot!”

Seltzer and I leaped up and ran to his glass-enclosed news cubicle. Several months earlier I had been designated as the assistant wire editor. When Dave was gone, I handled the wire service copy and made up pages one and two, as he did on all his work days.

We squeezed into a smaller room where three or four tele-type machines and a wire photo transmitter were going nuts. The Associated Press printer tapped away incessantly, but no words appeared on the roll of paper feed-ing into it. Moments before it said, “BULLETIN!

“BULLETIN! President Ken-nedy shot in Dallas.” Then noth-ing for seconds that seemed like hours. Then “Rushed to Parkland Hospital!”

Similar blurbs followed before the one I still stare at in my mind’s eye: “Kennedy dead”

By now, the tiny room was jammed with people from the newsroom and other departments in The Courier building. Seltzer and I were trapped, unable to get out to his telephone to shout “Stop the presses!” to the men in the pressroom two floors below. We literally had to physically push peo-ple out of the way.

Actually, we never really told any-one to stop the presses because the presses weren’t rolling yet. But, we did order them to hold the presses which was close enough. It now was well after 1 p.m. and the first of three editions was about to run. Composing room workers tore up the first two pages and maybe some others to make room for what was to come. Seltzer ordered the largest type face in stock for page one’s new banner headline. He and I began slapping together dispatches for our copyboys/girls

to carry downstairs to the linotype operators.

We had no television sets in the newsroom then. Someone may have commandeered a radio to keep us updated. Seltzer and I worked in a frenzy into the night to make the Nov. 22, 1963, copies of The Cou-rier “collectors’ editions.”

The next day, Saturday, was almost as hectic. Although we didn’t have a press run for the Sunday edition until 11 o’clock that night, I was summoned to the paper at 8 a.m. to organize the reams of copy that spewed out before Seltzer came on in early afternoon to begin editing and lay-ing out the pages. By the time he arrived the wire desk was buried in stories with scores of angles on the assassination and its implica-tions. I dragged home after sup-pertime, exhausted.

The following day, Sunday, we didn’t work. That was the day Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. Monday was my day to run the wire desk, so I dealt with that. Tuesday, Seltzer returned and I was back in the courthouse or police station or some other boring place. I’ll never forget those few days — Murphy’s face on Friday; Seltzer’s command of one of our nation’s biggest, most tragic sto-ries; the adrenaline rush one usually experiences few times in life.

I left The Courier just over four years later for a challenging report-ing job with the Des Moines Regis-ter. Thus ended an oft-interrupted Courier career that began in 1948 when, as a high school sophomore at New Hartford, I delivered the papers to several dozen residents of the town’s east side. The day after our basketball team won the district tournament at the Hippo-drome (now McElroy Auditorium) in Waterloo in 1948, I switched the sports section to the front of the paper so my customers could see the page one story and picture of our team (with me in the shot as the team’s 12th member).

I’m sure The Courier circula-tion department wouldn’t have approved; that’s why I’ve waited nearly 61 years to confess.

As recently as a year or two ago, incidentally, a clipping of that photo graced the bulletin board at New Hartford’s Little House Res-taurant. How could we ever live without newspapers?

Thanks to The Courier, I and dozens of other guys have four-year degrees from Iowa State Teachers

College, State College of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa. We paid our way through school by working afternoons and Satur-day nights/Sunday mornings in The Courier’s basement mailroom, taking papers off the press, count-ing, bundling, stamping and send-ing them out to their destinations across the city, state and country. These were good jobs that fit into our class schedules and paid well.

When I went to work in the mail-room in October 1950, I replaced Ken Tewalt, who had worked his way through ISTC and went on to be the Cedar Falls city clerk. Probably the most popular, fun-loving guy in the mailroom was

World War II veteran Clarence Hildebrand, who had won a cita-tion for helping save the crew of his crippled B-29 bomber as it returned from a raid on Japan in 1945. Tragically, years after he left the mailroom to manage jewelry stores, Hildebrand and his wife were slain by terrorists as they sat in an airliner at the airport in Rome, Italy.

My affinity for The Courier runs deep. The paper put me through college. It served as an inspiration to me to become a newspaperman. It gave me a wealth of experiences that served me well in succeeding years. The Courier simply was a good place to work.

HOVELSONFrom page 7

THE COURIER's 150TH annIvERsaRy

Courier File Photo

The Waterloo Daily Courier from Nov. 22, 1963.

Sunday, January 18, 2009 THE COurIEr PAGE �www.wcfcourier.com The Courier's 150Th AnniversAry

By MELODY PARKERCourier arts / Special Sections Editor

WATERLOO — Under the head-ing “Purely Personal,” the 1897 Courier kept readers informed of residents’ comings and goings:

“Mrs. S.D. Mitchell arrived home this morning from a week’s delightful visit at Chicago and Evansdale.”

“Miss Anna Stromgren left for Moberly, Mo., this morning where she expects to spend the winter with her sister.”

These morsels were bread-and-butter for society pages, and the feast continued well into the 20th century. By the 1930s and ’40s, Hollywood gossip columnists had been added to the mix, along-side tidbits about teenage slum-ber parties, bridge tournaments and chicken dinners. Engage-ment, wedding and anniversary announcements were interspersed with funeral notices.

The Courier’s society pages tried to emulate big-city newspapers in the 1960s, covering the social affairs of the wealthy and elite.

“If you were wealthy, you got the picture and big write-up. All the big parties and balls were covered, and Phyllis Singer wrote about them in her columns,” said Betty Ferguson, who joined The Courier in 1967.

Ferguson spent 18 years writ-ing lifestyles and feature stories, and was part of the seismic shift that began taking place in soci-ety departments across the nation in the late 1960s and ’70s. The changes went far beyond chang-ing department names from Soci-ety to Living, Lifestyles, Features, Community and even “You,” a name that, thankfully, had a short lifespan.

And while hard news reporters turned up their noses at the “soft-er side of news,” most of them wanted to write features because the stories often got multiple pic-tures and better play.

“It was an exciting time to work at a newspaper. Our department was breaking so much ground. We still did the chicken dinners, the weddings and engagements, but we had latitude to go after stories that really mattered, issue-orient-ed stories like teenage pregnancy, dealing with grieving children, parents without partners and fetal alcohol syndrome. Editor Gene Thorne didn’t say ‘no’ to anything

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we wanted to pursue.” Thorne died in 1995.

Ferguson recalled one reader couldn’t believe the issue of teen pregnancy really existed in the community. “I think the stories we were writing were a revelation to some readers,” she said.

She began writing stories about the inroads women were making in traditional and nontraditional careers. “Women — my mother — worked during World War II but when the men came home from war, a lot of women quit and went back home. Some women didn’t have a choice and needed to work to support their families. When my children got older, I went back to work and I actually had people tell me my kids would end up in jail and I’d go to hell if I worked outside the home,” Fergu-son said.

She wrote about the stages of grieving, interviewing Elizabeth Kubler Ross, author of the ground-breaking book, “On Death and

Dying.” She wrote about women who walked out of unhappy mar-riages, divorced their husbands and began making their own way in life. Stories about “firsts,” such as the first female supervisor, were becoming more frequent. Women began wielding more political clout, became empow-ered and rose toward the glass ceiling, and at the same time, the “Cinderella Complex” by Colette Dowling revealed women’s fear of independence and secret desire to be rescued.

Ferguson contends that without Singer, who died in 2004, as editor of the department, “It would have taken longer to make the change, to get those kinds of stories. She was open to everything. The edi-tors supported us and essentially gave us free rein.”

“I had a woman call me and say ‘I’ve just had an abortion and I want to talk about it.’ Phyllis and Gene weren’t afraid for us to tackle those kinds of stories. We also wrote features on everyday people — the 80-year-old woman who ran a gas station in a small town, a shoptalk column that had recipes from readers. We still did weddings and those kinds of things, too.”

Over the years, The Courier has published several cookbooks, including a booklet containing recipes by Curtis Glenn, The Courier’s late food columnist who wrote “On Food” in the 1990s, as well as a cookie cookbook for the

American Red Cross in the 1980s and the turn-of-the-20th-century “Good Things You Have Eaten in Waterloo Homes.”

Today the section still encom-passes food, travel, entertainment, the arts and culture, health and home and garden themes. Wed-dings and other social events are regularly published in Cele-brations, while Come Alive and Pulse are aimed at younger read-ers. Magazines like Cedar Val-ley Home & Garden, Image and Weddings are also outgrowths of

lifestyles pages.“What lifestyles reporters are

good at is sharing stories about real, everyday people, their emo-tions and concerns, social and community needs and interests, what they’re doing, what’s good, bad and unusual about people, and generally about living,” Ferguson said. “Things may have changed and evolved, but the essence is still there.”

Contact Melody Parker at (31�) 2�1-142� or melody.parker@wcfcourier.com.

Lifestyles department broke ground with issue-oriented stories

Phyllis Singer

Betty Ferguson

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1954: In June, The Courier prints 55,000 copies of a special Waterloo Centennial edition. The edition contains 278 pages and the full run uses 2,500 miles of paper.

Carol Morris is named Miss Iowa. She becomes Miss USa and Miss Universe in 1956.

1958: Buddy Holly plays at the Hippo-drome (now McElroy auditorium) in april and at Electric Park in July. He dies the following February in a plane crash near Clear Lake.

1959: Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at West High on nov. 11.

1963: TV reporter and Waterloo native Tom Pettitis is the only broadcaster on the scene and on the air when Lee Har-vey Oswald is killed in dallas.

Victor Harry Feguer, 27, of St. John, Mich., is hanged at dawn March 15 at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madi-son after being convicted under a federal law known as the Lindbergh statute. He becomes the last man executed in Iowa.

President John F. Kennedy is assassi-nated in dallas.

Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a dream” speech.

1964: John Wayne Gacy marries Mari-lynn Myers and becomes the manager of three local Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises.

The Civil Rights act outlaws segrega-

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tion.1965: at age 35, James Jackson is

the first black elected to the Iowa Legis-lature from Waterloo.

John Wayne Gacy is named the Wa-terloo Jaycees “Man of the year.” He is later tried, convicted and put to death in Illinois for the murders of 33 young men.

1966: dan Gable graduates from West High undefeated in his high school wrestling career.

1968: In September, Bruce Palmer collapses from a heart attack while in The Courier’s photography department darkroom. He dies in the arms of Jim Humphrey, a staff photographer.

The Waterloo Courier hires its first afri-can-american reporter, Imogene Jones.

In September, the Waterloo race riots occur.

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in California.

1971: On Jan. 11, Courier owner W.H. Hartman Co. purchases the Montgomery Ward building on Fourth and Commercial streets for $175,000.

1972: dan Gable wins gold at the Munich Olympics.

1973: Gates Business College closes.The U.S. withdraws its last troops from

Vietnam.Secretariat wins the Triple Crown

(Preakness, the Kentucky derby and Belmont Stakes).

1974: nixon resigns over the Water-gate scandal.

1979: In december, a bomb hoax at the Courier results in two arrests.

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The national dairy Cattle Congress drops the word “dairy” from it’s name.

1980: The Black Hawk County double murder trial of Michael Moses is the first time Iowa courts allow news cameras to be used in the courtroom.

52 americans, including Jesup native Kathryn Koob, are held hostage in Iran.

1981: The Courier changes to its cur-rent section and page numbering system (e.g., section a, page 1, vs. page 1).

On July 15, the motors on The Cou-rier presses are damaged by lightning. Spokesman Press Inc., of Grundy Center prints the paper.

James M. “T-Bone” Taylor shoots and kills officers Wayne Rice and Michael Ho-ing on July 12, setting off a manhunt that ended in Taylor’s capture.

1982: In February, The Courier installs a new computer system that reporters and the classified department use to type in stories and ads.

Johnny Gosch, 12, of des Moines van-ishes Sept. 5. He still is missing.

1983: On aug. 13, the Cedar Falls Record (4,000 circulation) is merged with the Courier.

1984: Production ceases at Rath Packing Co. following a 1983 bankruptcy filing.

1985: Rath Packing Co. is liquidated.1986: John deere and the United auto

Workers become engaged in a bitter five-month strike and lockout in 1986-87.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant in the U.S.S.R. explodes, killing 7,000 people.

1988: Courier begins using soybean oil ink for pages with color printing.

1989: The Courier spends $480,000

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for a new computer and typesetting system in the newsroom. This system remains in use until May 1999.

The Courier mail room is completely overhauled and moved from the base-ment of The Courier building to the first floor adjacent to the press room at a cost of $2.3 million.

1990: On Sept. 4, a car crashes through the office window at the Couri-■

er’s Cedar Falls offices.1991: Operation desert Storm is

launched after Iraq invades Kuwait.1993: Major flooding affects much of

Iowa.1994: In May through September, two

gambling referendums divide the com-munity. Both are voted down.

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courier timelineFrom page 2

More couriEr timElinE, page 11

Sunday, January 18, 2009 THE COurIEr PAGE 11www.wcfcourier.com The courier's 150Th anniversary

1994: The national Cattle Congress declares bankruptcy.

nelson Mandela is elected president of South africa.

1995: In december, The Courier Photo department gets its first digital camera, enabling photographers to send photos from remote locations on tight deadlines.

1997: In September, The Courier Web site goes live for the first time.

1998: The Courier wins an Iowa newspaper award for general excel-lence in papers over 8,000 circulation. The Courier wins 12 other Ina awards as well as 15 awards from the Iowa associated Press Managing Editors as-sociation.

1999: In May, The Courier installs a new computer network in the news-room, enabling reporters to access e-mail and the Internet at their desks.

2001: On aug. 5, the Courier in-troduces the Celebrations tab, which includes birthday, engagement and wedding announcements as well as other social news.

The Courier’s Cedar Falls office moves to 1904 Main St.

On april 1, Lee Enterprises completes the purchase of Howard Publications and becomes the new owner of The Courier. Lee Enterprises is headquartered in davenport, and with the acquisition

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of Howard Publications, owns 45 daily newspapers.

2003: On March 20, the united States invades Iraq.

2004: The Courier reinvents the Hometowner, renaming it the Insider and creating individual editions for Wa-terloo, Cedar Falls and Waverly.

On april 3, the Courier begins printing a Saturday edition. This marks the first

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time in the Courier’s history that it has published seven days a week.

On aug. 26, nancy Green is named pub-lisher of the Courier, the first woman to hold the position.

2005: In august, the Courier breaks ground on a warehouse addition to its property in downtown Waterloo.

The Iowa racing and Gaming Com-mission grants a license that enables the

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Isle of Capri casino to build a facility in Waterloo.

2006: In november, Courier Commu-nications moves its Cedar Falls bureau to 401 Main St.

2007: On March 30, the collapse of two walls at the historic building hous-ing The Courier’s Cedar Falls offices results in the closure of the bureau.

On Sept. 13, nancy raffensperger

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newhoff is appointed the Courier’s first female chief editor.

2008: The Courier installs a new software system in the newsroom to streamline the writing, layout and ar-chiving process.

On Oct. 20, the Courier ends printing operations in Waterloo, contracting to have the paper printed in Cedar rapids and shipped back.

■courier timelineFrom page 10

the courier's 150th anniversaryTHE COURIERPAGE 12 SUnday, JanUaRy 18, 2009www.wcfcourier.com