Delta’s community newspaper Delta Wind recently changed hands, and Loretta Schooley, its most recent publisher gave us permission to publish her story below (published in the June 29th Delta Wind). But first, by way of preamble, I’d like to publicly say a heartfelt thanks to Loretta, and a welcome to the new publisher, Michael Paschall. This is published here with permission from both of them.
Loretta made Delta proud with her consistently useful and professional approach to small community journalism. Not surprisingly, Delta Wind has won a number of awards over the years. It has been a consistent source of community news in good times and bad, and always with class.
On a personal level, I have read Delta Wind since the early 1980’s, sometimes subscribing even when we have lived in other parts of the world, as we do now. As a young area wildlife biologist, Loretta encouraged me to contribute information and stories about wildlife in the Delta area. I remember well sitting with a manual typewriter and triplicate carbon sets cranking out what I hoped would be useful information about hunting, wildlife and the outdoors for Delta folks. She always published them, but I wonder what she thought about some of them!
Then, back in Delta in the late ‘90s I came to Loretta again with stories about the new Delta News Web™. While I’m sure that she recognized immediately that there was some overlap between the two publications, she willingly published the articles. Loretta has always worked from the heart for Delta, and I suspect she saw the Delta News Web as something potentially good for Delta.
Thanks, Loretta. You are an inspiration for me personally, and you are the kind of “salt of the earth” person that every community must have to thrive.
Now, to Michael, I say hail and well met. You have big shoes to fill, but after an enjoyable and wide ranging discussion with you at your office on Friday evening, I believe you are up to the challenge and will also make Delta proud. Congratulations from us at the Delta News Web, and hearty best wishes.
David Johnson, Publisher
The Delta News Web
Thirty years
Who would have thought it, then? It started with a trip to Kodiak for the Women’s State Bowling Tournament in March 1976. Several of us from the Interior were flying down for round-the-clock shifts on the lanes.
A year earlier, Delta’s newspaper, the Midnight Sun, had ceased publication because it was losing money. The need for a community paper became more apparent as each month went by.
Talking about it, Patti Dull, Su (Emry) Swenson and I decided that we could start a paper. (We may have had too many Bloody Marys.) Each of the three had certain talents to contribute and ideas simmered during the trip. Home again, we enlisted Karen Hesser, who was teaching English and journalism at Delta High School. Plans came together during several evenings as we consumed appropriate quantities of affordable wine — Lancers Rose or Mateus — in Su’s kitchen.
The four of us each kicked in a little over $125 to purchase a used Gestetner mimeograph machine and learned that Chris Brann, a fireman working for the City of Delta Junction, knew how to operate and even repair the machine. We were in business!
We’d already chosen what we felt was an obvious name, “The Delta Paper”, because that’s what everyone in town had called the Midnight Sun.
That paper was originally “The Delta Midnight Sun” when started by Paul and Trilby Lott in January 1955. The Lotts moved away about a year later and Don and Marian Nilsson took over. The Nilssons eventually sold the paper to Sid and Jan Fleser, who later sold it to Jo and Emil Blahut, who changed the name in, what turned out to be, an unfortunate effort to draw readership from a larger geographical area.
Working on IBM Selectric typewriters, with interchangeable “ball” typefaces, and a ball-tip stylus when needed, the newspaper was impressed on blue stencils that went onto the drum of the mimeograph machine. That first issue, published and distributed on April 14, 1976, was printed on only one side of the 8 ½ x 14-inch pages because we were afraid the ink would bleed through and made it unreadable. (It did not.) The new paper was well received by the community.
A newspaper, then and now, is made possible only by its advertisers. Some of those who signed on early included the Club Evergreen, Delta Concrete, Trophy Lodge, Norton’s Goodyear, Delta Welding Service (Bob Geise), Diehl’s Shopping Center, Jack’s Service / Jack’s Liquor, Delta Seafood Products (Bob Edwards), Seitz Building Supplies and the Buffalo Lodge.
Karen was first to leave the group. She and her husband moved away from Delta at the end of the next school year. Su eventually bailed out, too. Working from home, her “real job”, was editing textbooks for major publishers. She moved to Tok and later took employment on the North Slope. (As many will recall, these were “pipeline days”.)
A major change came when Chris and his wife Frances purchased an offset press in the late 70s and a new Delta business, Dragon Press, was born. In addition to being folded instead of stapled, the paper got a complete new look with our purchase of a state-of-the-art Compugraphic typesetting machine. Patti, Chris and I formed a corporation in 1979 to “own” the newspaper and TriDelta, Inc., became the official publisher.
In 1982, Chris bought a second, larger press and the paper became the same size it is today.
Over the years, many people have asked why we printed on white bond paper instead of newsprint. The simple explanation was, and is, that newsprint comes in large rolls, which feed into huge presses, and the paper is printed before being cut to size. Smaller offset presses are “sheet-fed” and it’s not cost effective to work with pre-cut newsprint paper.
Originally, The Delta Paper was published every week but, once pipeline construction was completed, there was an economic downturn and we switched to every-other-week publication so advertisers’ monthly bills were lower and they could afford to stay with us.
Among many other changes, Chris sold Dragon Press to Polar Run Printing and, in time, the presses were moved to that shop in Fairbanks. Chris and Frances sold their Fleet Street home and took up world-class sailing, boat-building and computer work.
An opportunity to sell The Delta Paper arose in 1991 when John Lindauer was creating a small conglomerate of community newspapers. Ours was a successful (paying its bills) enterprise and Lindauer’s catch phrase was “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But he did attempt to “fix” it and his small empire began to crash over his head less than eight months into the effort. He tried printing all his papers in Anchorage, on newsprint, with shared advertising contracts, and it was no longer “Delta’s paper”. Death was imminent.
(Yes, this was the same Lindauer who later ran for governor — that didn’t work out, either.)
Considerable attorney fees later, TriDelta got back its equipment but the newspaper’s credit rating had been trashed and, again, there was no paper for a couple of months. To get started again, we enlisted the help of Ann Geise, her space and her typesetting equipment and Delta Wind (another obvious name choice) published for the first time on October 28, 1992.
Patti sold her Help Secretarial Service in 1997 when she and husband TC, who used to write
Snowshoe hares wear an all white coat during the wintertime. This picture, taken in May, shows just a few remaining white hairs as this rabbit has almost completed changing into its summer coat. Photo Courtesy Art Lenon 
Joyce McCombs, Director Delta Community Library
