The Adams County Free Press

The Adams County Free Press, "Serving the Area Since 1882", has always been a part of my life. As it has, I'm sure, for almost anyone who ever lived in Adams County Iowa for any length of time.
During my senior year in high school I was on the staff of the school paper. The Smoke Signal was printed by the Free Press. I had toured the Free Press and watched the paper being set and printed while in grade school. While that was interesting it wasn't until my involvement with the school paper - delivering copy to be set, picking up galleys for proofing, pasting the lay out and finally picking up the papers for distribution - that I became interested in being a writer.
There was a time in the early '60's when I "wrote" the Fairview news for the Free Press. (Each community in the county had a correspondent to report happenings from their area.) It was during that time that the editor, Paul Gauthier, mentioned to me the possibility of my doing some real writing for the paper, but that never materialized.
In 1995 when Bud and I were planning to move from West Des Moines back to the Corning area, I saw an ad in the Free Press for a bookkeeper. I answered the ad. I interviewed. I got the job. I began work at the Free Press November 1, 1995. I had mentioned during the interview that I would be interested in trying my hand at writing. It wasn't exactly writing, but owner/editor Dan Field gave me the job of choosing the topics for the "When You and I Were Young" section. The "Items of Interest From Free Press Files" covered the corresponding weeks of 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 & 50 previous years. The section was two columns wide and the full length of the page. For me, the best part of that job was reading all those old papers. There was so much more to them then. Even in the 1950's the paper was still two sections and as many as 16 to 20 pages each week.
It wasn't long before I had my first real writing assignment - a feature article on the Annual Christmas Tour of Homes. I would interview and write about one of the families whose home would be decorated and open to tour. From then on I had about one feature article a month published. I also began covering the school board meetings.
As much as I liked working at the Free Press, my time there was measured in months. The lure of a full time job with benefits was too great and I left for greener pastures. But not before I was acknowledged in print, by the editor, as "a writer".
There doesn't seem to be much of interest to me in the old hometown paper anymore. But I love to go online at http://adamscountyia.newspaperarchive.com and read about the good old days.