Celebrating 150 Years of the Albany Democrat-Herald

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ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD AT 150

Volume 1, Issue No. 2 of The State Rights Democrat.

The Democrat-Herald: 150 years and counting Paper has served the mid-valley since 1865

Cover credits‌ Thanks to Daniel Morgan for his design; Terry Gleason for his photos of the St. Mary’s Church fire and Albany Regional Museum, and the University of Oregon Archives for the Albany Democrat reprint.

JENNIFER MOODY Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌I t’s been a busy century and a half for the paper that calls itself the Albany Democrat-Herald.

Or maybe it’s actually been a busy 157 years. Or 91 years.

Calculating our anniversary date gets tricky when you look at the history of our publication.

But we’re going to go with the undisputed fact that we’ve been in continuous publication since 1865, the year Smith James O’Meara began the State Rights Democrat.

That means we just wrapped up our 150th year.

We aren’t the first paper to go by the name “Democrat,” to be sure. Although he isn’t exactly a direct ancestor, we do send a nod of appreciation to Delazon Smith, who served as one of Oregon’s first two U.S. senators and is credited with starting The Oregon Democrat, the first paper in Albany and the first in Linn County. Volume 1, No. 1 of that four-page weekly was printed on Nov. 1, 1859.

The Oregon Democrat’s sole mission was to do battle with Asahel Bush and the Oregon Statesman, or what he referred to as the “Salem Clique.” No love lost between the two, they referred to each other as “Delusion Smith” and “Ass-of-Hell Bush” in warring editorials of the time.

The Democrat lived on after Smith’s death in 1860, but only in fits and starts. Papers named “Democrat” didn’t sit well with a Republican presidential administration mired in the Civil War. General George Wright, who headed the federal army in the Northwest, excluded the paper from the mailing system as of April 30, 1862. Editor and rebel sympathizer Pat Malone tried to bring it back as the Albany Inquirer, but that, too, was excluded.

Various papers came and went in Albany in those years.

The paper eventually called

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO

Democrat-Herald owner and publisher W.L. Jackson, center, stands next to a young Bud Spencer, who’s sister is being presented with a bicycle she won in a contest in 1930. the Albany Democrat-Herald has the State Rights Democrat as its direct ancestor, begun by James O’Meara on Aug. 1, 1865.

Fred Nutting bought the paper in 1882 and changed the name to the Albany Weekly Democrat; it would remain that way until it became a daily six years later.

In the meantime, William Gladstone Steel, who helped establish the park at Crater Lake, became the first publisher of the Albany Herald in 1879. The Republican weekly stood on its own until the Democrat absorbed it on Feb. 24, 1925.

The first merged publication was printed March 2, 1925, as the Albany Democrat & Albany Herald. By mid-April, the paper had quietly dropped the extra name, becoming just the Albany Democrat-Herald.

As a nod to the history of the Herald, its volume and edition numbers ran for several years alongside those of the DH in the paper’s flag.

The paper came out in various forms over the decades.

Daily publications were offered

Lee Enterprises, which already owned the Corvallis Gazette-Times, bought the Democrat-Herald in 1997. At that time, the paper published six days a week. In 1998, it added a Sunday publication.

Although a morning publication in 1925, when it merged with the evening Herald, the Democrat-Herald published in the afternoon for many decades.

It became a morning paper on Oct. 4, 2010, a schedule we maintain today.

The metal plaque placed just outside the front door when our office was remodeled in 1994 states, “This newspaper is dedicated to the interests of its readers.”

We have maintained this dedication for 150 years. It’s the mission we will continue to follow as we move further into our second century.

Thanks for reading.

after 1888, but at various times, readers could also take the paper in weekly, semi-weekly, evening or weekend-only editions.

Individuals or families have owned the paper for most of its decades. The last individual to own the paper was Glenn Jackson, who inherited the paper from his father, William L. Jackson, a school superintendent who bought the Albany Democrat in 1919 with business partner Ralph Cronise.

The paper published out of an office on Second Avenue, moving in 1959 to 138 W. Sixth Avenue. In late 1993 and early 1994, a major remodel moved the front entrance to Lyon Street and changed the paper’s address to 600 S.W. Lyon.

Families owned the Democrat-Herald until the late 1970s, when Capital Cities Inc., a nationwide media company, bought the paper from Jackson’s heirs.

CapCities bought ABC in 1985. Eleven years later, the Walt DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌ Disney Company bought CapCities/ABC, selling off the pa- Former Democrat-Herald publisher Martha Wells, along with Bud Spencer pers owned by the chain in 1997. and executive Editor Hasso Hering, stand in front of the DH office.

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ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD AT 150

Leaving war and entering prosperity Mid-valley blossoms with expansion after World War II ALEX PAUL Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌World War II was coming to an end as the mid-valley entered 1945.

In February, headlines brought daily news of U.S. and Allied troops marching through Germany: “Reds Cross Oder on Wide Front in Silesia” only 32 miles from Berlin and “Americans Circle Japs in Manila.”

First Lt. Darel Lewis of Lyons was reported missing over Austria. Lewis was the pilot of a B-25 bomber and had previously gone down over Yugoslavia, earning him a Purple Heart.

On the homefront, there was a renewed belief that the long war was near its end.

Albany High School seniors were preparing for their annual class play, including Russ Tripp, who would go on to be a strong supporter of the arts in the community for decades.

Mid-valley residents could buy a quart of motor oil for 18 cents, a new car battery for $6.40 and engine spark plugs for just 33 cents each at Sears.

Of course, the national minimum wage was just 55 cents per hour.

A dozen large eggs could be purchased for 42 cents at either of the two Grocerveteria Super Markets in Albany.

In Salem, legislators were about to increase the governor’s pay from $7,500 to $8,000 per year and the secretary of state’s annual salary from $5,400 to $6,000.

At the Venetian Theater, Wallace Beery was starring in “Barbary Coast Gents.”

On February 12, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that $100,000 had been budgeted to study the development of a flood control dam at Sweet Home. The project was one of several being studied in Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and Idaho.

Funding had been approved in December 1944 as part of the U.S. Flood Control Act. The war may have been nearing its end, but the Oregon Guard was still looking for a few good men who wanted to learn about “close order

drill, riot control and marksmanship.”

By March, General Dwight D. Eisenhower promised, “Germany’s Whipped.”

Mrs. and Mrs. Claude Buckley of Lebanon were named caretakers for Clear Lake Resort by the members of the Santiam Fish and Game Association.

In April, Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Harry Truman was sworn in as the 32nd president.

By June, the war was over in Europe and Allies concentrated on ending it in Japan, ultimately with the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima, August 6, and Nagasaki, August 9, with a death toll of nearly 250,000 Japanese civilians and soldiers.

Timber and lumber jobs were key industries in the mid-valley, in part due to demands from WWII and then, to feed the expansion of new homes for returning service men and women.

The first Albany Timber Carnival was held in 1946.

In 1950, Linn County’s first Christmas tree farm was planted on 8½ acres near Lacomb by Floyd Mullen, former county agent, and Al Bird of the Linn County Fire Patrol.

The men planted more than 9,000 trees on cutover timber land at the E.C. Ayers Farm.

The Democrat-Herald editor and publisher was Ralph Cronise.

Allen Bennett, 13, of Lebanon, won $25, and Harold Drew, 12, of Sweet Home, won $20, by selling the most Democrat-Herald subscriptions in a sales drive.

The D-H also installed its fifth Linotype typesetting machine in 1950.

A crowd of 2,400 persons watched the Sweet Home Huskies basketball team defeat the Lebanon Warriors 52-50 at Gill Coliseum and advance to district hoop play. The high scorer for Lebanon was center Wayne Holzfuss with 19 points; Dave Boyd led Husky scoring with 14.

An editorial cartoon focused on “gyp schools” fleecing returning soldiers using the G.I. Bill for education, taking their money for worthless diplomas.

Total forest fire damage in 1949 amounted to $9,800, according to Mel Crawford, secretary-treasurer of the Linn County Fire Patrol.

Crawford made the announcement at that group’s annual meeting held

in Sweet Home.

Sally Philips, 17, reigned over the AlbanyHigh School spring carnival.

Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Unamerican Activities Committee were in full swing, ferreting out supposed communists near and far.

Gene Autry was starring in “Bells of Capistrano,” then playing at the Rialto.

Tripp & Tripp Realtors was advertising a remodeled 3-bedroom home in West Albany for $8,750.

Russell Tripp, a senior at Willamette University in Salem, won an all-expense-paid educational year in New Zealand through Rotary International.

Congress approved statehood for Hawaii, a week after approving the same for Alaska, but some were concerned that Senate approval might be tough to come by because the islands were “terribly infested with communists.”

On sale at Pay-Less Drugs for 17 cents: 12 pencils, 10 paper tablets and three boxes of crayons.

There were nine births recorded

the second week of March 1950 at the Lebanon Hospital, “with none exceptionally large or small, but all equipped with lusty lungs.”

Trilby Langmack, 16, of Sweet Home, the youngest licensed pilot in Oregon, was among a group of 85 private pilots who traveled to Cuba and stopped at several other locales along the way. Trilby was flying with her father. Dr. Robert Langmack and they spent four days touring Cuba.

Albany’s new $175,000 fire station opened at Sixth Avenue and Lyon Street.

The International Woodworkers Association rejected an offer for a maximum pension of $100 per month offered by Weyerhaeuser.

Comic strips in the Democrat-Herald included “Blondie,” “Alley Oop” and “Dick Tracy.”

Due to budget issues, the U.S. Postal Service announced cuts in local service. Home delivery dropped from twice to once a day and only first-class mail was to be sorted from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Albany High southpaw pitcher Ron Radford tossed a no-hitter in a

4-0 win over the Salem Vikings at Hudson Field.

President Truman was stumping across America, warning that if the United States continued with “isolationism” the country might wind up in a third world war as Russia continued to increase its communist hold.

And while it didn’t turn into a world war, U.S. and Allied soldiers and marines were soon embroiled in another war on foreign soil in South Korea.

The “conflict” lasted from June 1950 until July 1953 and pitted former U.S. allies in WWII, China and Russia supporting North Korea against U.S. backed South Korea.

Throughout the period of 1945 to 1965, technologies developed at the Bureau of Mines in Albany led to the mid-valley becoming a worldwide leader in the rare metals industries.

It started with the development of Wah Chang in the mid-1950s and continues today as a major economic engine for the mid-valley.

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌ M 1

Presidental candidate Thomas Dewey, center, visits Brownsville during his race against Harry Truman in 1948.

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ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD AT 150

‘People wanted to work here’ Retired publisher recalls the paper’s biggest years JENNIFER MOODY Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌In his 30 years with the paper, editor and publisher John Buchner brought it from mechanical to digital; from manual typewriters to computers to the Internet.

Buchner served as executive editor for the Albany Democrat-Herald for 10 years, general manager for another 10 and finally publisher and chief operating officer for 10 more.

Cameras brought him into the business.

The Albany native received his first professional newspaper experience in high school. He belonged to the Riverside Camera Club, a 4-H group, and its leader, Merrill Jones, was a D-H photographer. In 1958 or ’59, Buchner said, Jones invited the 17-yearold to answer phones on the sports desk.

He also took pictures at various Friday night games. “They’d send me out to Lebanon, Sweet Home, Halsey, for the first half, and I would shoot, and then I ran in and took calls, and the sports editor went to the Albany game,” he recalled.

In those days, the paper was on Second Avenue and the darkroom was underneath the furniture building next door, through the basement where the press was.

Buchner did that job through the summer and a full year afterward, then went to Linfield College, where at first, he planned to study to be a social studies teacher. Then a fellow who’d been the photographer for the college’s sports teams graduated and Buchner stepped into the role. “And it was fun,” he said.

He transferred to the University of Oregon and majored in journalism. After graduation, he tried to get his D-H job back, but with no openings to pursue, he ended up applying elsewhere.

He held a reporting and photographer job for the Ashland Daily Tidings and later became a city editor for the Bulletin in Bend. The Bend owner helped him purchase the Stayton Mail with Frank Crow, where Buchner, at age 23, was editor, photographer, reporter, delivery boy, rack stuffer, check signer and janitor as well as part owner.

“One day a week I slept in because of exhaustion,” he told audiences at a men’s breakfast years later.

After two years, Buchner had the opportunity to go to the La Grande Observer to be the editor.

A couple of years after that, he

DAVID PATTON, DEMOCRAT-HERALD‌

Former publisher John Buchner shares memories of his time at the Albany Democrat-Herald. decided it was time to try a bigger market.

He wrote 25 letters to various papers and got three offers: part-time jobs at the Los Angeles Herald and from a paper in North Carolina, and a full-time offer as a copy editor for the Des Moines Register. He took the full-time job, but hadn’t even been there a year when Glenn Cushman, who had been hired in Albany from Bend, called him and asked, “Want to be executive editor of your hometown daily?”

When Buchner returned to Albany in 1968, the paper had just converted from hot lead to offset printing and cold type. The transition time was lagging, equipment kept breaking down, the presses ran late and circulation was sinking. It was, as Buchner remembered it, a great opportunity: “Anything you did, pretty much, was an improvement.”

Right away he was sent to Columbia University, to the American Press Institute, where he came back with some great ideas to improve circulation. One was to change what had been known as the Society or Women’s page to “People,” a full features section front that allowed more use of photography and longer features on education, food, entertainment, religion and government.

Another was to get the paper back on a reliable schedule, which Buchner helped do by getting a routine training schedule.

Drawing on his photojournalist days, Buchner also believed photos drove circulation as much as news did. He emphasized large photos and the use of color.

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌

Friends, family and co-workers celebrate Buchner’s tenure at the paper with a retirement party in February 1999.

“We added a color deck to the press during the ‘70s so we could have 4-color on the front and back page of the two sections,” he recalled. “Later, when I was publisher and Lee Enterprises purchased the D-H, corporate made the decision to move all Corvallis production to Albany and that’s when units from the Corvallis press were moved to Albany and added to the existing D-H press.

Color was then possible on other pages and more pages could be printed at the same time.”

In Buchner’s early days as editor, the idea was to have one editorial staff member for every 1,000 papers in circulation. With the encouragement of publisher Glenn Cushman, Buchner increased hiring, taking the staff from about a dozen reporters and editors to 20 between 1970 and 1980.

The paper became a conduit for young, talented journalists statewide. “People wanted to work

here,” Buchner recalled. “We were using color; trendy things they were learning about in school. It was a fun time, and we were growing, which allowed you to do those things.”

Circulation grew from roughly 12,000 in 1968 to close to 22,000 by the time Buchner retired. The town was in growth mode, which helped, he said, as did a door-todoor sales campaign. Fred Meyer, Bi-Mart and Rubenstein’s Furniture Store were just coming in, which helped drive advertising.

In 1972, the paper won the trophy for general excellence from the Oregon Newspaper Publisher’s Association. That was a particularly big triumph because in those days, the winner was not chosen from a size division but from every daily newspaper in the state.

The Democrat-Herald began acquiring other publications: the News-Times in Newport, the Outlook in Gresham, and the

Nickel Ads. Cushman was away a lot, and needed someone on site to manage the business side of things. In 1978, Buchner became general manager.

When Capital Cities Inc. bought the paper, it was primarily a broadcasting company and more or less left the publications to do their own thing as long as they were making money.

In 1990, the Democrat-Herald was also a leader in promoting newspaper recycling. CapCities honored the paper’s efforts with a headline in its industry publication that year, “Resolve to recycle.”

The advent of the Internet meant the paper would have to change.

The Democrat-Herald hired its first webmaster, Jim Magruder, in 1996, and began offering a World Wide Web edition, Mid-Valley OnLine, in 1997.

Nobody saw the Internet as a mortal wound – yet. Buchner acknowledged he could see it made print less relevant, but Albany was still well away from the Portland television market and not really part of the Eugene area, either.

“My view was we had a niche and we were going to survive a lot longer,” he said. “The geography was in our favor.”

The city changed a great deal in the years Buchner was with the paper. The opening of the Lyon Street Bridge in 1973 changed the way people traveled. The opening of South Albany High School in 1970 and the merger of the local elementary districts with their high schools in 1979 changed the geography of education. The arrival of Heritage Mall in 1988 changed the way residents shopped.

Buchner was at the paper when Ralph Miller came to Oregon State University as the basketball coach in 1970, when field-burning caused a massive pileup on Interstate 5 and forever changed the grass seed industry, when St. Mary’s Church burned in an arson fire in 1989.

He particularly remembers the paper’s coverage of the 1982 recall campaign for a Linn County commissioner who had been less than truthful about her background.

She accused the paper of being a “yellow rag.”

“So we had a yellow ribbon party,” he said, chuckling.

Throughout all of it, Buchner has held to the philosophy that newspapers play an essential role in a community: to provide accurate information about the community to its public, and to provide a forum for people with different ideas about how things should go.

“I like the (Eugene) Register-Guard slogan,” he said: “‘A citizen of its community.’ To be relevant, you need to be. I never wanted to lose sight of that.”

In the interest of readers Cushman: Steady growth upward Former editor Hasso Hering talks philosophy, future of newspapers

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‌During the 48 years I worked at American newspapers, including the Democrat-Herald from August 1977 through Sept.

12, 2012, I tried to keep in mind that the paper should work in the interest of its readers. That meant trying to find out stuff that people didn’t already know and tell them about it. The idea was to make the paper as interesting to the general reader as we could make it.

In small towns, there’s not all that much sensational news, but there’s often something more to be learned about the routine things and events we see around us all the time. The local paper’s job is to keep an eye out for interesting facts behind the routine, and that’s what we tried to do.

Not that we always managed it, but we tried.

One big job of the local paper is to keep an eye on local government on behalf of its readers. I mean reporting what the city, the county, the school board are doing and why, and also what they should be doing but aren’t. This means attending lots of meetings just to keep up and pick up leads to stories unrelated to the meetings themselves. It also means questioning decisions being made and the reasons behind them.

This takes people, lots of them, with enough time to look

Former publisher describes a rebirth of the paper in the late ’60s, early ’70s

MARK YLEN DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌

Hasso Hering talks with readers during a weekly stand-up talk with the editor that Hering did in the late 1990s. into things for more than 10 minutes on the phone. When I joined the D-H, I think the newsroom staff numbered around 25. The number of news gatherers has shrunk dramatically since those days, in Albany and everywhere else, and I’m not sure the papers can still fill their basic role no matter how hard the remaining staff works.

Governments and other interests have stepped into the void.

They all now distribute their own “news” to as many people as possible. And papers pretty much repeat what the publicists in government tell them.

Technology has been the driver behind the decline of community newspapers as a cohesive force and main source of news. Anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher now, and this has killed the economic foundation of news organizations with enough clout to be independent and do a

thorough job.

I think we’re paying a price in terms of politics and sensible governance. On the national level we have a million voices talking stridently about public affairs, but hardly anyone with enough influence and public trust to help hold the center together. Statewide and locally, it’s about the same.

What the future holds I do not know. It’s hard for me to foresee how a new “media outlet,” formerly known as a newspaper, can ever regain the status and concentrated local audience that the Democrat-Herald in its heyday had earned. Once in the early 1980s, a headline on Page 1 quoted then-Councilman Marv Saxton’s complaint that the “D-H runs city.” He was exaggerating — a lot! — but I can’t imagine any circumstance in which a local official anywhere would voice a similar complaint today.

‌Glenn Cushman was hired as publisher in 1968, and is credited by many as the first piece in creating the modern version of the Albany Democrat-Herald.

Cushman lays much of the paper’s future success at the feet of managing editor John Buchner, and over the course of Cushman’s 20 years at the helm they helped turn the struggling newspaper into an Cushman award-winning publication.

Cushman, who now lives in Bend, described the D-H this way when he came aboard: “... A newspaper in sad decline during a period of great growth in print media. The then-publisher, Elmo Smith, was dying of cancer.

He had installed a new Goss Urbanite press that the crew could barely run. The news product was only fair. The D-H had lost about 1,000 subscribers in the previous year.

Circulation was about 13,000 or so.

“So, I asked a former fellow worker named John Buchner to return from the Des Moines Register to be the executive editor. That is when the newspaper started to

improve product and grow in circulation. (Years earlier I had helped hire Buchner at the Bulletin in Bend as a reporter.)

“For the next years circulation grew, topping out at something around 22,000. Several prizes for journalistic excellence were awarded. Business and profits doubled. A profit-sharing program was installed.

“The man most responsible was John Buchner. His quiet and determined leadership of the other department heads resulted in the steady upward growth of the newspaper.

“Sometime around 1970 or so the D-H purchased the daily Ashland Tidings. At the time the Tidings had a small newsroom. It was managed by a young man named Hasso Hering, In addition to getting out the daily paper, Hasso was writing some of the best editorials on the West Coast. So, we invited Hasso to the D-H to run the editorial page. He accepted and moved to Albany.

“Hasso was a great editor. He was offered chances to be the editor of several larger newspapers. He turned them all down.

“He told me that was not interested in job jumping.

“A lot of people had a part in growing the D-H. Some of the names include Sylvester Fiel, circulation manager, and John Irwin, a steady hand in the business office.

“I lived and worked in Albany for about 20 years. Those were the best years of my life, as the movie from World War II said.”

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DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTOS

Marchers cross Broadalbin Street while protesting the Vietnam war along First Avenue in Albany in 1968.

From Vietnam to the moon Front pages mirrored TV sets in bringing the news home NEIL ZAWICKI Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌From 1965 to 1974, the front page of the Democrat-Herald became a record of our escalating involvement in Vietnam, as well as a document of our changing culture.

A November 18, 1965, headline quietly reported on the first major battle of the Vietnam War, in the Ia Drang Valley.

“US Cavalrymen battled the North Vietnamese troops on the slopes of Chu Pong Mountain today for the fifth consecutive day,” read the lead. And as an indicator of the vivid level of news coverage that war would get, UPI reporter Joe Galloway reported from the battle itself, under the headline, “Reds Mowed Down by US Firepower.”

“The bodies were stacked five and six deep in front of our guns,” one cavalryman said.

Four companies of North Vietnamese attacked in a human wave — a last-ditch attempt to overrun the Americans.

In another dispatch, Galloway gave a heavier depiction of the brutality: “A scream of mercy.’Mother of God! Don’t!’ A burst of machine gun fire from an automatic weapon. Those were the sounds of night on the mountain. A night of hell.

“American soldiers prayed and fought.”

Such reports would become standard fare on American televisions, as well as the D-H front pages, in the coming years.

And over at Sears, a Silvertone 16-inch table model color TV was on sale for $279.

Another story that month reported a predicted drop in draft notices as more young men volunteered for service. Still another reported that three Marine Corps Drill Instructors faced court marshal for mistreating recruits.

In 1966, the I-5 freeway was completed. A Dec. 3. headline read, “Eleven US Pilots downed in planes.” It was the highest single day toll of airmen in the war.

That same year, voters prepared to decide the fate of a proposed community college for Linn and Benton counties. The vote signaled the creation of Linn-Benton Community College. And in the classifieds, a 1962 Ford Galaxie was $1,195.

Asbury Speedway opened for its first full season in 1967, and racers came from as far away as Portland came to compete. Green Peter Dam online. Still, the war would claim space on the front page.

“Marines hunt N. Viet Groups,” read a headline. The story described Marines on patrol trying to find North Vietnamese soldiers, which had become increasingly more difficult.

In January 1968, with the headline, “Saigon Shelled as Cong Launch Largest Drive.” The D-H ran a story about a surprise attack by North Vietnamese forces, which would come to be known

Nelson Rockefeller and Tom McCall in Albany in 1968 at the Timber Carnival.

Fred Meyer looks over plans for his store with Larry Rice and Russell Tripp, right, in 1970s.

Presidential candidate Gene McCarthy and future Governor Bob Straub paddle the Willamette near Albany in 1968.

Richard Nixon delivers a campaign speech in Albany while running for president. as the Tet Offensive. The attack prompted Walter Cronkite to declare the war unwinnable.

But larger than that headline was a photograph of a giant bulldog made out of snow. Albany Union High School Students planned to battle the North Salem Vikings in a football game, and students Steve Russel and Ross Hawkins apparently spent two hours building a 5-foot-tall snow bulldog in preparation. The next day, the paper reported the Viet Cong attacked the police station in Saigon. And the federal minimum wage rose to $1.60 an hour.

The moon landing made the front page July 21, 1969. Our current editor, Mike McInally, noted the whimsy – intentional or not — which was achieved through the headline and photo by D-H photographer Stanford Smith: “Moonprints etch man’s greatest feat,” read the headline, which sat just above a photo of Albany resident Phillip Macisak, laying on his couch with a TV resting on his belly, while holding a cup of coffee.

And maybe more telling of the era, the D-H ran a “Man on the Street” interview section, asking

not men but women, about the moon landing. The paper wanted to know how they would feel if their husband was on the moon.

Mrs. Roger Cook (no first name included) replied, “I wouldn’t want him up there, I don’t think. I really think it’s kind of silly to send someone up there.”

Over at the 3 Boys’ Market, bananas were 10 cents a pound, and pork spare ribs were 39 cents a pound.

Monteith Riverpark was born in 1970, and a front page story reported that The Timber Carnival planned to crown a queen at the Elks Temple.

In the classifieds, a 2,200-square-foot, three-bedroom home was $29,500.

And the new Lyon Street Bridge opened across the Willamette. It cost $2.9 million and had taken a little over a year to complete.

As a sign of the times, when President Nixon resigned in 1974, D-H reporter Patrick O’Neil covered the event from Sloopy’s Tavern on Pacific Boulevard.

“Pool ball clicks greet resignation,” read the headline. The story was a play-by-play of the indifferent reactions of bar den-

A partially completed Lyon Street Bridge in 1973. izens as Nixon addressed them from a small TV above the bar.

And on Page 6, Merry Prankster and author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Ken Kesey, made the paper. In the article, Kesey, referred to as a “Eugene novelist,” was threatening to sue the Register-Guard and the Mail Tribune

for libel after both papers suggested his group, Bend in the River Council, was perpetrating a prank by holding a conference to air voter concerns. 1974 was also the year Millersburg was incorporated, and the Albany Public Library opened its new building at 14th Avenue and Waverly Drive.

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Dawn of the digital age Iran and Elvis, land use and schools dominated headlines mid-’70s into the ’90s JENNIFER MOODY Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌Technology, entertainment and international incidents dominated the national headlines throughout the mid-1970s up through 1995.

The United States celebrated its 200th birthday in 1976. In Albany, that meant a gala event at the World Championship Timber Carnival over the Fourth of July. Gov. Bob Straub was an honored guest at the Independence Day parade, and the flagpole at the Linn County Courthouse received a fresh coat of paint.

The presidential election that year saw Jimmy Carter defeat the incumbent, Gerald Ford. Carter would oversee the Camp David accords between Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, but just a year later he and the rest of the nation would reel from the taking of more than 60 American diplomats and citizens hostage in Iran.

The crisis lasted 444 days and was considered a major factor in Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan for the presidency. Reagan was sworn in just minutes after the hostages were formally released.

The situation would prompt another oil crisis on the heels of the 1973 oil embargo, this one pushing gas prices above $1 per gallon for the first time.

“State gas supply diminishes while prices climb,” read headlines in April 1979, noting at that point, prices had reached 76 cents per gallon for regular and 84.3 cents for unleaded. Several Albany service stations reported their decisions to reduce daily hours and close on Sundays. By the end of the month, Mobil Oil Co. had two drilling operations going in Oregon, one near Harrisburg south of Diamond Hill, although only small pockets of natural gas were found.

Oregon gas supplies were at 90 percent of their usual flow by June 1979, but to keep visitors coming to the Timber Carnival, the state allocated more than 180,000 extra gallons of gas to Albany. That prompted protests from stations who said they didn’t get a share.

Energy strategies were uncertain nationwide as the country coped with the March 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania.

Oregonians protested nuclear

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌

Hector Macpherson Jr. of Shedd looks out the window of a barn built by his father in 1924. MacPherson has spent the majority of his life working in the barn. power at the Capitol building in Salem that spring, prompting an editorial in the Democrat-Herald in which Hasso Hering noted dryly that no similar protests had been seen for the more than 50,000 people killed on Oregon roads and highways the previous year. In 1980, voters passed an initiative requiring voter approval for any future Oregon-based nuclear projects.

Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, died in 1977, but new distractions were on their way. The world had yet to be familiar with the phrase “personal computer” in the mid70s, but it wasn’t long in coming.

Kids at home were already devoting their after-school hours to the Atari 2600 by the mid-’70s, and in 1981, they had something called “music videos” from a channel called MTV to add to their screen time.

Albany’s school setups changed again, after the construction of South Albany High School in 1970.

Small elementary districts around the city consolidated with their feeder high schools in 1979, forming what is now Greater Albany Public Schools. That same year, the new district decided to contract with an outside company, Saga, to start providing hot lunches districtwide.

Land-use planning and the effects of the Oregon Land Use Act of 1973 took center stage in local politics.

Hector Macpherson Jr., who created Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission, had written Senate Bill 100 and SB 101, which became the foundation for those acts. The land-use legislation has shaped all of Oregon since.

Macpherson grew up on his fa-

ther’s dairy farm in the Oakville area southwest of Albany. Following his election to the state senate in 1970, he started work on SB 100, which would become the Oregon Land Use Act. The act required all cities and counties to adopt comprehensive plans that met a series of statewide standards on land use, development, housing, transportation and conservation of natural resources.

Landowners furious with the new restrictions filed 68,000 signatures in 1976 to try to force the Land Conservation and Development Commission to disband. The chairman of the commission, L.B. Day, resigned rather than exacerbate the fight. But 58 percent of voters rejected the dissolution request, and instead, in 1979, passed a bill to establish the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals.

Macpherson took the furor in stride. In a 2009 interview with the Democrat-Herald, he said the legislation prompted a fair amount of hate mail over the years, particularly from landowners with small holdings who saw the act as infringement on their rights to their own property.

“I don’t think they’ve stopped being angry yet,” he said.

Land use practices were also behind what was arguably the biggest news story in the state during the mid-1980s.

Field burning, then a common practice to clean fields of pests and stubble, sent thick smoke billowing over Interstate 5 on a warm August afternoon in 1988. A truck driver, blinded, drove his semi over the top of the van traveling in front of him.

PHOTO BY TERRY GLEASON‌

The Albany community was stunned when an arson fire broke out at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on the evening of Oct. 29, 1989. Bruce Scott Erbs, a transient, was later convicted of the arson, serving 13 years of his 20-year sentence. After initially finding no lodging on release, Erbs was given a tent to live inside the grounds of the Linn County jail. Erbs later moved to housing in the Albany area, residing in the community until his death in August of 2015.

The ensuing pileup would kill seven people and injure another 37.

Mid-valley growers were used to burning 250,000 acres of stubble annually in the grass seed capital of the world. After the wreck, lawmakers began reducing allowable burning, bringing it down to 65,000 acres by 1998 and eliminating it almost entirely a little more than a decade later.

Tragedies elsewhere also claimed Oregonians’ attention. A deranged fan murdered John Lennon of the Beatles outside his New York City townhouse in 1980, and another tried unsuccessfully to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Poisoned Tylenol capsules killed seven people in 1982, forever changing packaging for over-thecounter medications. The space shuttle Challenger broke apart less than two minutes after liftoff in 1985, killing seven astronauts and grounding shuttle flights for three years as NASA — and the rest of American — took a hard look at the safety issues involved in space exploration.

Americans still associated the idea of “terrorism” with faraway places, even as U.S. soldiers launched missiles in Iraq in the first and second Persian Gulf Wars (1991 and 1993). The idea of do-

mestic terrorism hit hard in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. A year later, FBI agents also arrested domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, for the series of mail bombs he’d sent out during the past two decades.

The decades contained bright spots, however. East Germans were reunited with their countrymen after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, and something called the World Wide Web made its debut in 1991.

Locally, soaring property taxes, particularly in the Portland area, prompted anti-tax activists to put together a tax-limit measure in 1990 known as Measure 5. Two later measures, 47 and 50, which passed before the decade was out, rolled back taxable values and limited their increase potential, fundamentally changing the way government entities were funded, particularly schools.

Tax compression still limits available revenue, prompting current fights for finances for mid-valley police departments, libraries, swimming pools and other public agencies.

Big stories and bigger changes Former D-H managing editor reflects on top stories, technological shifts ALEX PAUL alex.paul@lee.net‌

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‌Graham Kislingbury spent more than 34 years covering several beats at the Democrat-Herald before he retired as online editor in 2015.

Kislingbury grew up in Burlingame, California, about two miles from the San Francisco airport, and was drawn north when he enrolled at the University of Oregon, where he worked at the Daily Emerald student newspaper.

His first newspaper job after college was at the Cottage Grove Sentinel, where he learned about all aspects of the newspaper business, working at the weekly community newspaper.

Kislingbury came to the D-H from Cottage Grove in 1981, first as sports editor and then as editor of the People Page. He became managing editor and then, when the newspaper became more digitally based, took over managing the online services department.

Kislingbury said three key stories stand in during his time as managing editor: a 44-vehicle pile-up on Interstate 5 due in part to field burning smoke; the mid-valley flood of ’96; and the tragic events of September 11, 2001, when the United States was attacked by terrorists.

Kislingbury said the interstate crash occurred in August 1988.

A local farmer had gotten permission to burn grass seed stubble, but winds shifted and smoke covered the interstate, leading up to a massive wreck.

“I was new on the job and Hasso

(Hering) was in Central Oregon,” Kislingbury said. “I remember that we mobilized coverage and it was long before we had a website.”

Kislingbury called the event, “horrible.”

“I went out there that evening and the freeway was closed,” Kislingbury said. “I remember seeing a van in which four members of one family died. It was very sad.”

Kislingbury said coverage went on for months and eventually the tragedy led to the banning of nearly all field burning.

“But farmers found a way to begin marketing the straw and also diversified to other crops, such as wheat,” he said. “Farmers found the solutions.”

In February 1996, an unexpected warm spell led to a thaw that turned mountain snow into flowing waters that led to flooding throughout the mid-valley.

“It was the same week that the new Albany City Hall opened and we thought that was going to be a big deal,” Kislingbury said. “Suddenly, that wasn’t such a big deal after all.”

Kislingbury said Albany residents were afraid the Willamette River was going to spill over its banks and flood the downtown area, but fortunately, flows subsided and after three days, the river remained in its banks and began to subside.

“You can still see how high the water rose at Monteith Riverpark,” Kislingbury said. “It was another sad event because three of the five people who died in Western Oregon were from our area. It was sad and there was a huge amount of damage.”

The Democrat-Herald’s first website went live a few months after the event, changing the way news was covered.

The Democrat-Herald staff had

AP PHOTO/ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD, TONY OVERMAN‌

Albany Fire Department engineer Stew Parker walks past the smoking remains of some of 27 vehicles in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 north of Tangent in this photo from Aug. 3, 1988. The accident, which was caused by smoke from a grass seed field burn, killed seven people.

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTO‌

Graham Kislingbury covered the huge funeral for Jason Hoerauf, an Albany police officer killed while assisting a motorist on Interstate 5 the day before the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, Kislingbury said.

“The funeral procession was massive, from the Assembly of God in Albany to the IOOF Cemetery in Lebanon.

“We took the photographers out

was the newspaper’s publisher and she approved printing a second edition that day.

“We were an afternoon paper at the time and it was the first time I had ever been involved with an extra edition,” Kislingbury said. “It was amazing and our coverage continued for days. Even though we lived on the other side of the country, it affected all of us.”

Kislingbury said he remembers attending a West Albany High School football game a few days after the tragedy, as a way of “getting some normalcy back into our lives.”

Kislingbury said the company’s website proved its value in the January flood of 2012.

“We really did the coverage up big with aerial photos, videos and lots of photos,” Kislingbury said. “We also had a live blog that was popular and very helpful.”

Kislingbury said people used the blog to connect for information such as which area roads were flooded or open for travel.

“Our page views went through the roof,” Kislingbury said.

to dinner because it was late by the time we got done and I told them to come in late the next day,” Kislingbury said. “I got up about 6:30 a.m. and heard there a plane had struck one of the towers. Of course, I thought it was a small private plane, like everyone else, but soon, we learned that wasn’t the case.”

Kislingbury said he remembers thinking, “My God, this is horrible.” Contact Linn County reporter Alex Kislingbury said Martha Wells Paul at 541-812-6114.

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ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD AT 150

A Marion County Sheriff’s deputy is helped away from the scene of the accident by another Marion county deputy in a photo from September 2001.

Through changes and challenges 9/11, technological advances still resonate today KYLE ODEGARD Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌From 1995 until now, there have been great technological advances with the Internet, cellular phones and other devices.

The Albany Democrat-Herald once meant simply a newspaper, but now readers scroll through articles on their computers or other electronic devices. And most letters to the editor arrive via e-mail.

Other notable developments include the election of the nation’s first black president and, in Oregon and other states, the controversial legalization of both gay marriage and recreational marijuana.

But nothing heralded change and the challenges of the current times like the events of Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked airplanes and smashed them into buildings on the East Coast.

“Attack on America,” screams a huge headline from the D-H that afternoon.

“After Pearl Harbor, the country pulled together as never before to confront the danger to the United States and the world. Even though we do not yet know all the details, it very much sounds as though this is again such a time,” wrote Editor Hasso Hering, in the D-H’s editorial from Sept. 11, 2001.

Local soldiers fought in resulting

wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Joey Blickenstaff, Kevin Davis, Douglas Desjardins, Travis Moothart, Tyler Troyer, Kory Wiens, Mikeal Miller, Andrew Lara, Nathan Nakis and Joseph Rodewald all gave their lives for our country, and in a broader sense, liberty across the world.

Numerous other service members came home injured, though their wounds weren’t always physical.

Terrorism continues to be a specter looming in the background of everyday life, as Americans debate the exchange of security for loss of freedoms, and accounts of car bombings and other jihadist attacks regularly make the news.

The threat of terror also is homegrown, as evidenced by a plethora of school shootings or by former West Albany High School student Grant Acord, who was sentenced to 10 years in state custody for a 2013 massacre plot to attack the school with homemade bombs.

Other top stories from 1995 until today include: the flood of February 1996; the opening of the new Albany City Hall later that year; the scourge of methamphetamine surfacing in the late 1990s and the return of heroin more recently; the continued downturn in the logging industry, perhaps best illustrated by the death of the World Championship Albany Timber Carnival, held for the last time in 2000; the rise of the Ducks football program and Beavers baseball team to national powerhouses; the great recession

and job losses, including the loss of 270 jobs at the now defunct Albany Paper Mill in Millersburg, that led to unemployment levels reaching nearly 15 percent in Linn County in 2009; Albany electing its first female mayor, Sharon Konopa, in 2009; the gradual limitation and eventual 2010 ban of field burning in the Willamette Valley; the opening of a medical college, a veterans’ home and other developments in Lebanon; and a fire that destroyed South Albany High School’s Cafeteria on April 1, 2015.

Oddly enough, another of the area’s most important stories was featured in the Sept. 11, 2001 edition of the paper: The day before, the funeral of Albany Police Department Officer Jason Hoerauf was held, and drew 2,000 attendees, including hundreds of law enforcement personnel from across the region.

Hoerauf and Oregon State Police Senior Trooper Maria Maria Mignano were killed on Sept. 4, 2001, when they were assisting a disabled van off Interstate 5, and a motorist who fell asleep struck them with his pickup. State Police Sgt. John Burright of Albany also was seriously injured in the incident.

“We went from experiencing a local tragedy to a national disaster,” said the Rev. Lew Shelton, who presided over the funeral.

Kyle Odegard can be reached at kyle.odegard@lee.net, 541-8126077 or via Twitter @KyleOdegard.

DEMOCRAT-HERALD FILE PHOTOS

Our front page on Sept. 11, 2001.

WHO’S WHO IN ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD HISTORY ‌Several staffers have come and the Herald name to the flag to make gone in the Albany Democrat-Her- it the Albany Democrat-Herald. ald’s history. Here are a few words about some of them. Our apologies for any of those not mentioned: Publishers/Owners‌ Albany native Glenn Jackson The Oregon Democrat‌ Delazon Smith was elected one and his sister, Olga, inherited a of Oregon’s first senators in 1859 and majority interest in the D-H in 1949. started Linn County’s first newspa- He later bought out minority owner per in Albany, the Oregon Democrat, Ralph Cronise and built the company that same year with his brother-in- to include the Ashland Daily Tidings law, Jesse M. Shepherd. Our link to and eight local weeklies in Oregon. this paper is a bit hazy, due to the While Jackson focused on Pacific fact it was sold, renamed the Al- Power, where he was CEO, and his bany Inquirer, then suppressed by many civic endeavors, he left the daythe Postmaster General twice for its to-day operation of the newspapers Southern leanings, and disappeared to their managing editors.

Capital Cities Communications acaltogether by 1865. Still, Smith got quired the company in 1980. the ball rolling.

Jackson is best known in Oregon State Rights Democrat‌ The State Rights Democrat, for his 20 years as a member of the founded in 1865, is considered our Oregon State Highway Commission true ancestor. Fred P. Nutting bought and its successor, the Oregon Transpartial interest in the paper in 1882 portation Commission.

The Glenn L. Jackson Memorial from George E. Chamberlain, an Albany lawyer who later became Or- Bridge on I-205 between Vancouver, egon’s governor and a U.S. senator. Washington and Portland is named Nutting remained part owner, and for him.

Elmo Smith, publisher and milater editor, columnist and publisher, nority owner, built the new facility at from 1882 to 1912. Nutting dropped the State Rights part of the name and Sixth Avenue. He owned and develcalled it the Albany Weekly Demo- oped a chain of weekly newspapers crat. The paper went daily beginning that were not part of the D-H propin 1888 and was called the Albany erties and are now known as Eagle Newspapers and owned by his son, Democrat.

The Albany Herald, founded in former Congressman Denny Smith.

Smith came to the D-H in 1957 after 1879, went daily in 1885. serving out the term of Oregon govNutting sold his share in 1912 to W.H. Hornibrook, who, in turn, sold ernor Paul Patterson, who had died to his city editor, Ralph R. Cronise, in office. Smith failed in his effort to and businessman and school superin- win a full term as governor, losing to tendent William L. Jackson, in 1919. Robert Holmes in 1956.

Glenn C. Cushman, the fourth Hornibrook was later appointed minperson to hold the title of publisher ister to Siam.

Cronise became the paper’s editor, since 1925, oversaw the expansion of and in 1925 he and Jackson purchased the Democrat-Herald publishing comthe competing (and struggling) Al- pany to include newspapers in Ashbany Herald, shut it down, and added land, Springfield, Newport, Gresham

The Early Years‌

Albany Democrat-Herald‌

and Sandy. He later added the trade publication Stamp Collector, plus Nickel Advertising publications in Seattle, Portland and Spokane. Cushman was publisher when Jackson died, and the company was sold to Capital Cities Communications. Cushman was instrumental in establishing employee profit-sharing.

The driveway in front of the Democrat-Herald has a street sign declaring it Cushman Way. John E. Buchner, who held positions at the paper from delivery to editor, was hired as publisher in 1988.

On his watch, Buchner oversaw the remodel and expansion of the building, which changed its street address from Sixth Avenue to the current Lyon Street address; combined the Sunday edition with Corvallis Gazette-Times under Lee Enterprises; was given supervisory authority over Newport, Lebanon and Gresham/Sandy before his retirement in 1998; and led the paper to its highest daily circulation in its history, 22,000.

Harold Orsborn, advertising rep, ad manager and publisher. He was the classified ad manager for the Gazette-Times prior to being name Albany publisher in 1999.

Martha Wells served nine years as publisher of the D-H, Lebanon Express and later the Gazette-Times before her retirement in 2010.

Chris Loretto stepped in for about 6 months after Wells.

Rick Parrish, publisher of the Longview Daily News, took over after Loretto’s exit. He was replaced by current publisher Jeff Precourt in 2014.

Editorial staff‌

Wallace C. Eakin, assistant to the publisher, managing editor, reporter in a career that spanned 50plus years; among first graduates of the University of Oregon journalism

school.

Charles D. Alexander, linotype operator, editor of the first Sunday edition of the Democrat in 1920, retired in 1962. He continued editing a literary page in the Saturday Democrat-Herald after the Sunday edition of the Democrat was dropped. He was a nationally famous short story author; “Bobbie, A Great Collie,” was one of his most famous novels. He wrote his stories and reviews directly on the linotype — no copy paper or typewriter. He had many stories published in the Saturday Evening Post and other national magazines.

Merrill Jones, first full-time photographer at D-H in the 1950s.

John E. Buchner, executive editor (1968).

Hasso Hering, editor, associate editor (1978). The first real “editor” since Fred Nutting, Hering lived the news and opinion product and raised the quality of its content. He became a reasoned voice for the conservative Oregon community. (That’s everywhere but Portland and Eugene.)

Governors, legislators, judges and business leaders of every political persuasion sought his audience and were frequent visitors at the D-H. He also served on a state commission appointed by the governor. He was succeeded by current editor Mike McInally.

Ianthe Smith, society editor. She knew everyone in town, and then some.

Shelley Burrell, women’s editor.

She was later women’s editor of the Salem Capital Journal and Oregon Statesman.

Richard Nafsinger, managing editor, sports editor (later publisher of Hood River News and president of Eagle Newspapers, which was founded

by Elmo Smith and is now owned by former Congressman Denny Smith, son of Elmo.

Wallace B. Eakin, reporter. He was the son of Wallace C. and later editor of the Hood River News, and is now retired.

Gordon Rice, reporter, later with United Press.

Bruce Westfall, reporter, east Linn County bureau. He worked at the Vancouver Columbian after the D-H. John Baur, reporter and news editor in the 1980s and ‘90s; currently works for an online publication.Kernan Turner, managing editor in the 1960s (later a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, mostly in South America) George Turnbull, associate editor in the 1950s (after retiring as professor and dean of the University of Oregon School of Journalism.)

Robert J. Caldwell, reporter and associate editor (wrote editorials for several years), later becoming managing editor in the 1970s. Bob was later editorial page editor of The Oregonian and helped that newspaper win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

Christian Anderson, reporter, city editor (replaced Dan Jones in the 1970s). He left to be managing editor of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin (owned by the Seattle Times), later associate managing editor of the Seattle Times, editor of the Orange County Register, publisher of the Colorado Springs Gazette, publisher of the Orange County Register, publisher of The Oregonian, short time editor and publisher of The Register-Guard in Eugene.

Dan Jones, reporter, city editor, first computer technician at the D-H. He was a Linfield grad, editor of the weekly Stayton Mail and had worked as a reporter for the Eugene Register-Guard.

Gus August, reporter at the Lebanon bureau, later covered county Please see STAFF, Page D13

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ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD AT 150

Capturing mid-valley life on film Former D-H photo chief still enjoys his time in Albany ALEX PAUL Albany Democrat-Herald‌

‌Although other job opportunities presented themselves, Stan Smith spent his entire 32-year career with only one newspaper, the Democrat-Herald, producing photographs of hard-working people at their jobs and at play.

Smith, who grew up in Eugene, worked his way through the University of Oregon, graduating in 1968.

“I looked at jobs in Honolulu and Alaska,” Smith said. “All of the photo credits and bylines in Honolulu were Japanese and it’s dark half the year in Alaska, which isn’t good for a photographer.”

Smith interviewed at The Oregonian in Portland and the former Capital Journal in Salem, before stopping by the Democrat-Herald.

He was offered a job the same day.

“Joe Sand was editor and Glenn Cushman was the publisher,” Smith said. “I had my own 35 millimeter camera at the time, but Cushman made me get a two-and-a-quarter format camera with all of the goodies.”

Smith said he even brought in his own photographic enlarger, “because it was so much better than what they had at the paper.”

Smith remembers lugging around a large strobe flash at every football game.

“It had a battery that weighed 15 pounds and it blinded everybody,” he said. “Pete Maravich from Louisiana was playing a game at Oregon State and I popped off a couple shots with the strobe and it blinded him.

There were no rules about that in those days.”

Smith said the Democrat-Herald building was only a few years old at the time.

“But some photographers are slobs and the darkroom was a mess when I got here,” he said.

“I spent a lot of time cleaning it up.”

Smith said he was the only photographer on staff for about a year.

“I finally went to Cushman and said I needed help,” he said.

“I was working seven days and nights a week.”

At the time, Smith said the newspaper was running about 30 stories on the front page and photographs were limited to about two columns wide.

“Elmo Smith was touring

Staff From D12

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and emergency services at the D-H for years. Gus died recently at the age of 90.

Bob Rodman, reporter, sports editor, news editor. Retired from Eugene Register-Guard as sports writer. Bob took the D-H to new levels of sports coverage at the high schools, Linn Benton Community College and Oregon State University. He started as a one-person department and it grew to two fulltime and several part-timers, plus strong support from the photo staff.

Rodman was followed by other notable sports people: Greg Hansen, Joe Much, Kenn Hess, Fred Westerling, Tim Trower, Graham Kislingbury, Steve Lundeberg and Les Gehrett.

Stanford Smith, chief photographer. He recorded Albany history for 30 years. He brought photo journalism and color photography to the Democrat-Herald at the time the newspaper changed to offset printing. He was hired by Glenn Cushman. The D-H benefited from many photo students in the journalism department program at Oregon State University: Chris Johns, later editor of National Geographic; Randy Wood; Tony Overman; Dennis Roler; and more.

Glenda Suklis, longtime reporter and editorial clerk.

Claudia Painter, people page editor. First people page editor.

Her husband Sonny worked for the City of Albany. He died in the last year or two. Believe she still lives in town. She was from Illinois, believe she had worked on one of the Chicago newspapers in the women’s department before coming to Oregon. A couple of her successors were Graham Kislingbury and Mary

“It was a good job because I kept reinventing myself. I always wanted to go out and get it done. I didn’t like being in the office and would go out driving around. That’s how to find good subjects to photograph and good stories.”

Stan Smith

China and Japan and would send film home for me to develop,” Stan Smith said. “When he got back, he wrote stories to go with the photos. He was making a last trip before he passed away.”

Smith praised Cushman for being extremely supportive of the importance of good photos in each edition.

“He loved photographs and he believed most of our readers did, too,” Smith said. “He wanted to run big photos and we often ran photo pages. We had a lot of fun with that.”

Smith said he would print photos on 11 X 14 paper and then reduce them on a large press plate camera because it increased quality resolution.

Smith said that in addition to enjoying taking photographs, he enjoyed laying out newspaper pages.

John Buchner became editor

of the paper shortly after Smith was hired and he also shared a desire for quality work in all departments.

Smith said the August 4, 1988, massive vehicle pileup on Interstate 5 was a crucial story for the newspaper, told in both words and photographs.

Forty-four vehicles were involved and seven people died.

Another 37 were injured when a wind shift caused smoke from a legal field grass seed field burn to shift and cover the interstate.

The accident happened about 4 p.m. and closed the northbound lanes of the interstate about 7 ½ miles south of Albany for hours.

More than 10 vehicles caught fire.

“Tony Overman was the other photographer at the time and we went different routes to get to the accident,” Smith said. “We got photos from two different view-

Parkinson.

Patrick O’Neill, reporter and columnist; went on to write for the Oregonian.Connie Petty, reporter-photographer. Authored many feature stories that were enhanced with her photography. Well-known in the community for her interest in the arts and finding interesting people to write about.

Joan Kropf, reporter, People Page editor. Feature-writing was her strength. She liked dealing with the public and the public liked her. She began as an editorial clerk (calendar, obits, news of record) and ended up as an accomplished writer and People Page editor. Having grown up in the Albany community, she had a great background for digging up good local feature stories.

She left the D-H to become feature editor of The Longview (Wash.) Daily News.

Graham Kislingbury, sports editor, People Page editor, managing editor. He was a people person, loved by the staff and the community. A person committed to helping others in both his professional and personal life. Retired from the D-H in 2015.

David Gilbert, reporter, city editor under Hasso Hering. Went on to teach communication at Linfield College.

Wayne Falogowski, sports editor, later became a KOIN TV reporter.Maury Sanderson, wire editor, news editor (retired from D-H).

Joan Haines, reporter, women’s editor (later Bozeman, Montana reporter and women’s editor).

Larry Lange, reporter, associate editor (later Vancouver Columbian reporter). Neil Felgenhauer, associate editor, wrote editorials after Wallace C. Eakin retirement; later became Spokane Review copy editor. Lora Cuykendall, copy editor,

city editor. Jean Chandler, copy editor; later part of the Chandler family ownership of The Bulletin in Bend. Quinton Smith, reporter; went on to become editor of the Gresham Outlook, then on to the Oregonian as a reporter. Al Bach, East Linn County reporter in 1970s.

Doris Gunderson, east Linn County reporter in 1960s. David Jordan, reporter (later Bend managing editor, Oregonian reporter). Dusty Plogg, city editor in the 1950s. Joe Sand, reporter, managing editor in 1960s (deceased). Marilyn Montgomery (Smith), reporter, now City of Albany spokesperson and assistant to city manager. Kathlene Glanville, reporter; later an Oregonian editor. Mike Henneke, assistant news editor, copy editor, online editor; now works as a page designer for the News-Review in Roseburg.

Business/ advertising/ production‌

Ralph Lee, advertising salesman, retail advertising manager, assistant general manager. To the business community, he was the face of the Democrat-Herald for many years. He was at the paper in the 1950s until his retirement. Active in his church, Rotary, Chamber.

Clifford Bryan, business manager. Survived management changes.

Was involved in the planning for the new building in 1960. Retired after a long career at D-H. His widow and children still reside in the community.

Howard Messmer, advertising director, business manager. After leaving the newspaper he became an owner of Shryock’s Menswear in Salem. Hired by Glenn Cushman from Salem newspapers in the 1970s.

John Buchner, general manager

Stan Smith, 1968 (left) and 1988 (above). points.”

Smith said the men sent 20 to 30 pictures to the Associated Press and won an award for supplying photos off schedule, since the Democrat-Herald had already been printed that day.

Smith had only been at the Democrat-Herald a few months in 1968 when presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy made a campaign train stop in Albany.

“I had been cleaning the darkroom and had to use gritty cleanser on the sinks,” Smith recalls. “I thought I had cleaned everything pretty well, but when I souped (developed) the first roll there was grit all over it. I had to work an hour to get one good print.”

Smith implemented new technology into the paper including scanning negatives to create digital prints and working with the early series of digital cameras.

“It was a good job because I kept reinventing myself,” Smith said.

“I always wanted to go out and get it done. I didn’t like being in the office and would go out driving around. That’s how to find good subjects to photograph and good stories.”

Smith said Chris Johns interned at the paper while he was a stu-

dent at Oregon State University.

Johns went on to become editor-in-chief for National Geographic Magazine.

He also worked with his future wife, Marilyn Montgomery, who was the newspaper’s police reporter before becoming the public information officer for the city of Albany.

Now 71, Smith said he once asked internationally famous Ansel Adams what qualities a good photographer should have and his reply was “ego.”

Smith said he became interested in photography in the seventh grade, when a friend brought a camera to school.

He also felt blessed to have studied under Bernie Freemaster at the University of Oregon.

“He was an excellent teacher and taking classes with him was like over-training,” Smith said.

Smith said he has always enjoyed living in Albany.

“It’s a great place. We have the beautiful river and Victorian homes,” Smith said. “It’s a blue collar town and I like blue collar people.”

(78-88) W. Clark Gallagher, retail advertising manager, advertising director.

He came from the Bend Bulletin in the 1980s. He was promoted to publisher of The Springfield News before returning to Albany as general manager in charge of all sales under Buchner. He was active in the community in Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce, organizations where he served as president. He took on a lot of community work Buchner had done for Cushman as general manager.

Sam Suklis, advertising salesman.

This one-of-a-kind salesperson had a career at several newspapers including the Lebanon Express and the D-H. His widow, Glenda, still lives in Albany.

Rollie Jones, press foreman.

Made move from letterpress to offset and from Second Street facility to Sixth Avenue.

Bill Drager, pressman, assistant foreman. Bill began as an apprentice pressman at the D-H after high school, left for the military and came back to the D-H until his retirement.

Still lives in North Albany.

Tom Stratton, production manager in the Cushman years. Still lives in Albany.

Robert Phillips, operations manager. Replaced Stratton when he retired. In charge of D-H building remodel at the Lyon Street address.

John Irwin, controller. He worked for all the properties as a CPA, including the D-H. His office was located at the D-H. Sylvester Feil, circulation manager. He SOLD the newspaper to subscribers. After he came to D-H in the 1970s, circulation grew about 1,000 copies a year (from about 12,000 to 18,000).

Michael O’Brien, circulation manager. He followed Syl Feil, then later

became publisher at the Ashland paper, owned by the D-H. He left the company to become publisher of the Capital Press in Salem. He is about to retire there.

Mary Jacq Jenks was the first classified advertising manager in the 1970s. She was a concert pianist and piano teacher.

John Hauck, classified manager in the 1980s and ‘90s after Mary Jacq. He was the first professionally trained classified manager. He was in charge of classified when automotive and real estate advertising was an important profit center.

Dan Roddy, tech support manager. He kept all the electronics in operation in the late 80s and 90s.

He also did tech support at the other D-H owned properties. He left the paper to work for the State Treasurer in Salem.

Ralph Godwin, janitor. Godwin was the D-H janitor from the 1950s until his retirement in the early 1970s. After Ralph, the paper went to a contracted janitorial service. If you wanted to know anything about the staff in those days, Ralph was a good source. He worked at the Second Avenue location as well as the Sixth Avenue location.

Richard F. Anderson, Pacific Northwest manager for Disney and Lee Enterprises. After Glenn Cushman retired, Dick took over supervisory duties of the Nickel publications and the newspapers for the corporate ownership. He had an office in Portland at Nickel Ads and lived in Lake Oswego.

Mark Cushman, circulation manager.

Wally Oster, retail advertising sales. Loretta Ireland, bookkeeper in the 1960s. Kathy Hannahs, assistant controller, later at LBCC business office, now retired and lives in Albany). Barb Breshears, composing and paste-up. Cheryl Surendra, composing, paste-up, production.

Contact Linn County reporter Alex Paul at 541-812-6114.