CAREER

The Secret TheSecret

is to Just Keep Going

Terri D. Sanders inherits a newspaper and a legacy

The Omaha Star has never missed a publication. Every week since July 9, 1938 – and now bi-weekly – through social change and the ebb and flow of the community it calls home, the paper has gone to press.

Terri D. Sanders is here to make sure it stays that way.

The Omaha Star is one of the oldest Black Newspapers in Nebraska. It is considered an African American community newspaper. Owned by the nonprofit organization, the Mildred D. Brown Memorial Study Center, the business activities of the paper are overseen by a predominantly African American-led board.

Terri is the newest editor and publisher of the Omaha Star, which was founded by the late journalist and civil rights leader, Mildred D. Brown. The fifth consecutive African American woman in the role, Terri took over in 2020, but her perseverance and dedication to her community began long before this moment. She was born in Omaha and grew up helping at her parents’ beauty supply business.

“I learned to count money. I learned to stock shelves. I learned to do all of those entrepreneurial things,” she said. “I didn’t watch cartoons on Saturday mornings when I was little. I worked.”

After high school, Terri attended Creighton University, where she majored in journalism. But finding a journalism job wasn’t next on her agenda. She just wanted to move somewhere warm. An on-campus interview led to a job in New Orleans.

“I was an insurance underwriter, which wasn’t very stimulating,” she joked. “But I got to live in an amazing place.”

The Air Force eventually took Terri and her husband, Daniel, to South Dakota, Alaska, and Missouri before they returned to Omaha. Back at home, Terri drew on the sewing skills learned

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“ “ “ “ I live my life in such a way that I burn the candle at both ends and up the middle, so that when I go, I’ve done everything I want to do.

from her mother and began doing alterations for local businesses, eventually opening up her own shop out of her home. She also worked to instill certain values in her three children, Daniel, Symone, and Averi - hard work and independence, the worthwhile challenge of entrepreneurship and the importance of community.

Those children are now three remarkably successful adults. Daniel owns a contracting company, Averi works in event planning, and Symone is chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris.

As her children got older, Terri was ready for something new. She started businesses making balloon arches and gift baskets. She coordinated weddings. In 2014, Terri helped resurrect the long-closed Great Plains Black History Museum and took a marketing position with an organization dedicated to investing in North Omaha.

While some of life’s challenges can be viewed as opportunities, others are not as welcome. In 2016, Terri was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received the news while she was traveling for a conference.

“When I came back, I met with the surgeon and he said, ‘However you approach this is how you will come through it.’”

So, she moved forward, with surgery and then chemo and radiation. When her long hair began to fall out, she had her barber shave her head. But as she quietly battled cancer, tragedy began to strike – one loss after another. Her mother passed away in August, her best friend died in November, and early the next year, Terri’s husband Daniel suffered a massive stroke and died 11 days later.

“My whole circle of life changed in less than six months,” she said. Daniel’s memorial service was held on the couple’s 37th wedding anniversary. Not long after, Terri remembers her daughter Averi asking her if she was okay.

“I said, ‘Do I look sick?’ And she said, ‘No, but I’ve never seen you break down. Most people would be in a ball right now, but you just keep going.’ And I said, ‘That’s the secret. You just keep going.’”

Terri kept going. One evening, while in a board meeting for the Mildred D. Brown Memorial Study Center, an organization dedicated to introducing students to journalism, she learned that the Omaha Star was struggling. Downsizing was on the table. Suddenly, she found herself being asked to take over as editor.

The offer might have been easy for most people to pass up. It was posed as a 10-hour-a-week commitment (Terri knew it would require much more time). No pay. Little support. But she isn’t most people, and she knew she had a legacy to uphold.

“I said okay because I knew Mrs. Brown, and I had a lot of respect for the newspaper,” she said. “That was February 2020. The pandemic hit in March, and everything shut down, but the paper kept on going.”

The paper that had never missed an issue held onto its track record, with Terri sticking to the formula that made Mildred Brown’s vision so successful.

“Mrs. Brown reported on things that happened in the Black community. She believed in the good news. If you had a 5th birthday party, it was in the paper.” In September 2020, Terri officially made her role as publisher and editor of the Omaha Star her full-time job. She’s getting paid now, and she has big plans for the future of the paper, from increasing subscriptions to restoring its historic building and adding a printshop. She also hopes to connect with the editors of other Black-owned newspapers across the country, many of whom are women.

And as for life and work outside of the newspaper, Terri isn’t done learning and creating. Not by a longshot. Her kids give her trouble about all of her gadgets and projects, but she laughs it off. She has plans.

“I live my life in such a way that I burn the candle at both ends and up the middle, so that when I go, I’ve done everything I want to do.” Z

Catherine Kraemer is a freelance writer whose essays on life, grief and motherhood have appeared in HuffPost, Slate Magazine and the Omaha World-Herald.