EAGLE: Next generation steps up in Wahkiakum

ty would walk in asking, ‘What’s happening with the paper?’ and I say, ‘Jacob and I are going to run it.’ There are just sighs of relief when they know we are here to stay. They are just thrilled. Someone came in and said just that.”

Rick’s parents, Bob and Lois Nelson, bought the paper in the 1960s. Rick started working there as a seventh grader, cleaning up. He graduated from Wahkiakum High School in 1969, then attended Western Washington University where he studied French and journalism. He took over as publisher when his father died in 2006. Rick’s sister, Amy Nelson, who now lives in Bellingham, worked with him.

Although the old Linotype typesetting machine now is housed at the museum down the street, the cluttered Eagle building at 77 Main St. is still a treasure trove, blending printing history and decades of Wahkiakum folklore.

A framed eagle looks out over a sturdy Heidelberg Press. Dusty reverse metal type relics lay on cabinet tops. One faded photo shows a very young Jacob watching his grandfather set type. A 5-foot wide photoboard displayed at Bald Eagle Days invited visitors to name those in the blackand-white pictures; it garnered multiple scribbled responses.

Simmons and Jacob Nelson married in 2016, but have been a couple for 17 years.

They speak with enthusiasm about ramping up community engagement techniques like social media while continuing existing Eagle operations, which include the weekly printed paper with a circulation of about 1,300 and the website at www. waheagle.com.

“We will continue to connect — that’s really what the Eagle does,” said Jacob, who worked at the student TV station during his college years.

“We are committed to finding ways we can expand that connection. Everywhere we go we hear people excited.”