The block for the flag of the Polk Progress.
By Joeth Zucco
Senior Editor
* -
"We have been recipient of
phone calls and letters since an
nouncing we want to retire from the
weekly newspaper business. The
reaction has been that of drug
addicts, couched in terms of need
ing "the Progress fix” each week.
The Progress publisher is also in
need of a ”Jix” and hopes to find it
somewhere beyond the walls of the
Progress office. There's something
called ’'burnout” and we have
reached it. A subscriber asked
"How do you manage to write so
much each week?’ My reply was.
"I'm beginning to wonder also how
Ido it." That's when it is time to step
down, fold up, get out - quit!”
- from ‘Polking
Around” in the Polk Progress,
Thurs., Oct. 5, 1989
Norris W. Alfred is ready for a
new way of life. After spending
more than 30 vears as editor and
publisher of the Polk Progress,
Alfred is ready to relinquish his
linotype and take some time off.
“Physically, I’m okay,” Alfred
said. “I just don’t have the interest
that a person should have in (the
community) and school. It’s time I
got out. Tnere’s only one way to
get out... to sell it.”
Alfred said he’d like to sell the
paper to a business that would
hold it together. The American
Publishing Co. has bought all of
the other papers in the county, he
said.
One of the unique aspects of the
Polk Progress is the use of the lino
type. Linotype is a process that
typesets by casting lines of type in
lead slugs. Alfred types in the copy
on a keyboard line by line, pulls a
le/er which causes the mold of cor
responding letters to fall into place
in a carriage. The carriage, which
collects the lines of type in the
order in which they are produced,
is taken to a table where Alfred
arranges the slugs as continuous
text within a box that holds an
entire page.
Afterwards he proofreads the
page, then locks in the copy and
takes the pages to press.
The pages are locked into the
flatbed press. Alfred sits atop the
press and feeds paper into the
press sheet by sheet. In one hour
he prints 950 papers.
The linotype, flatbed press, and
other machines in the print shop
date back to the early part of the
century. Alfred said he’s accumu
lated a lot of the equipment since
papers started changing over to
cold type — setting copy with a
computer — about 25 years ago.
“I don’t think anyone whobuys
the paper will want to do linotype, ’’
Alfred said. “This is outmoded.
‘There will always be some kind
of linotype printing for finer type.
Some may continue it because it’s
quaint, but as a business it’s out.
“I’d suggest that they hang onto
all of it for a museum. They’ll only
need one piece of equipment.”
The Polk Procress is one of two
newspapers in Nebraska — the
other being the Spalding Enter
prise -- that still uses the linotype
process. Alfred mused that every
once in a while a story is written
about the last linotype paper in the
U.S.
“There’s still quite a few, but
there’s no question that it’s end
ing,” Alfred said. “What’s really
ending, though, is the independ
ent newspaper. Most newspapers
today are owned by chains.”
Alfred said he’d like to sell the
Caper by Nov. 1 “because then I’ll
e out of newsprint.”
He mentioned several projects
he’s planning to pursue once he
sells. Alfred said one man is inter
ested in publishing a book of 20 of
the best editorials from the Polk
Progress. A Lincoln woman is
doing a book on weekly newspa
pers, focusing on the Polk Prog
ress, he said.
“When you’re 76, you don’t plan
too far ahead. I know what I’m not
^oing to do is play pitch in the pool
“There is a chance of going back
to watercolor,” he said “See the
one’s on the wall. They aren’t very
good, but they’re mine.”
There is much to enjoy in Ne
braska. Look for the minute, the in
timate, the detail and enjoy the col
orfulness of prairie plant life while
feeling the thrust of prairie winds in
the face; sensing the ominous lam
ing of dark clouds gathering over
head; watching the orange-black
white flight of an oriole from bush
to tree. To stand centered in a 360
degree horizon is to experience a
natural worldliness, colorful and
complete.
- from "The
Weather,"July 27, 1989
Alfred began working at the
Polk Progress after he graduated
from high school in 1931 He said
the editor asked him if he’d work
for him handsetting the paper for
$6 a week. He continued his job as
he commuted to Nebraska Central
College in Central City.
At Nebraska Central, he had his
first and last class in journalism,
which he failed.
“I was just fooling around,” he
said. “I really didn’t learn anything
then."
He eventually went on to Doane
College and graduated with a de
gree in chemistry. While working
on his degree, he worked in sev
eral print shops across the country,
from John Day, Ore. to Hamilton,
N Y. He worked for a couple of
years as a rubber chemist in Chi
cago and later a watercolorist.
Alfred worked as a watercolorist
for about five years. He said he
didn’t make enough money with it
to survive so when he was in need,
he’d get a job at a print shop.
‘‘Everything was hit and miss.
When I was broke I’d go to work in
a print shop.
"I never really settled down till I
bought this thing,’ he said.
Alfred bought the “thing" in
1955, when he returned to Polk to
take care of his parents.
“I gravitated to the Polk Prog
ress because the person running it
was a coach. The doctor told him to
get out of coaching (because of the I
stress),” he said. “He didn’t know
much about printing, so I helped
out.”
Alfred eventually bought the pa
per from the coach and later sold it
to Jack Lowe, who was trying to
buy up all the papers in Polk
County. He bought the Progress
back when the deal fell through in
1966.
At first Alfred ran the paper by
himself, but for the past 19 years,
Barbara Kennel has been his full
time help. Alfred said she started
with him before she got married
and with his help has raised two
boys in the shop.
“I told her, ‘I’ll do the babysit
ting if you’ll do the work.’”
The plan worked out and her
son Stevie ended up being the Polk
Progress apprentice while Timmie
became the assistant apprentice.
“They weregoodforquitea few
columns in the paper.”
A lot of Alfred’s notoriety comes
from his editorials Being a liberal
Democrat in a conservative Repub
ucan stale can uiiiig auuui hucicm
ing observations.
“It intrigues people that I can get
away with it,” he said.
For an example, he cited this
week’s editorial: “The Bush ad
ministration is still fighting the
Cold War because they don’t be
lieve Gorbachev is real. There is no
use for the Stealth Bomber except
in a war. And Star W ars depends on
permanent enmity.”
For background, he said he
reads both of the Lincoln papers, 1
The New Yorker, The Nation and *
sometimes the Christian Science
Monitor. He also watches Wash- 1
ington Week In Review. But after
23 years of writing editorials, he
said he thinks he’s getting burned
out on politics.
In addition to his editorials, he :
also writes three other columns -
“Polking Around,” weather and
the bird-watching column.
“That’s standard fare in the pa
per," he said. “Outside of that I
See POLKjjn Sj
