Marvin Hastings interview about journalism career, Ankeny, Iowa, July 17, 1999

Section 1: Q: We're talking with Marvin W. Hastings of Ankeny, Iowa, on July 17, 1999. A Saturday. We're at his home at 105 NE Sherman Drive in Ankeny. Q: Marvin, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the fact that you never submitted a resume'. You turned down an unsolicited offer from the Register and were later hired. How was it that you came to the Register? A: OK. I came to the Register...I was recommended by a professor at Iowa State University. Ed Blinn. Ed was my professor at South Dakota State where I graduated and later came to the Sioux City Journal where I was working. Ed worked there during the summer and I think he probably observed my work there as well as knowing my work at college. He recommended to the managing editor that they hire me because they were looking for someone. Q: But you had already been out in the field. You were working in South Dakota. A: I was in Sioux City [IA] at this time. I had worked in South Dakota previously, but I went to the Sioux City Journal. I was there seven years. I had a letter from Mike Pauly who was the copy editor at the time at the Register, asking if I'd be interested in a copy-editing job there. I had just been named an Action Line editor at the Journal, which kind of intrigued me. And I liked the Journal. I liked Sioux City. We had just moved into an older house. So I said no, but suggested they could keep my name on file. That I was kind of enthused about this Action Line job. And, about, I don't remember when that offer came, probably in the summer. Then in September, I got a letter from the managing editor, Ed Hines, asking if I'd be interested. I thought,"Well, second letter, why don't I go and check it out." He talked with me and said "Ed Blinn says you'd be OK. It's OK with me if you want the job." Q: This was 1969, right? A: Right. September of '69. I had just bought another house. I owned two houses in Sioux City at the time. There was a strike in Sioux City of the Iowa Beef Workers and houses weren't moving and I had a difficult time selling the houses. So Ed said, "Just take your time. Wait till you get your houses sold." Well, it was December. And I still hadn't sold the houses, so he said "You want the job or not?" So I said, "yes,"and I took the job. I commuted on weekends by bus from Sioux City to Des Moines [IA]. I lived at the YMCA because we only had one car, so I had to be close to work. Q: So this was five days a week. A: No, I stayed at the "Y" five days a week and went back by bus on weekends to Sioux City. Q: Any kind of strain on your family, related to your situation? A: Well, yes. One time, one of our [fellow employees], he was a make-up man, said, "Why don't you call home on the Watts line?" So I did that after the first deadline went by at 9:30 or so. I called home and my wife said, "Jill [a twin, two years old at the time] had fallen down the stairs. "I can't talk now. I have got to take her to the hospital." And she hung up. And I sat there wondering what had happened for a while. There was not too much strain, but it was tough being away from the family. Q: The first time you were offered this job, you turned it down. You must have known at the time, since you traveled in journalistic circles, I mean you were a journalist, how prestigious the Des Moines Register was. A: Right. Yes, I was. And that had a lot to do with my wanting to come. Q: Your accepting it the second time. A: Right, right. Q: Was there any reluctance to turn it down the first time? A: No, but I was interested in this Action Line. The appointment, Action Line Editor, had been given to me. I was proud of the work we were doing at the Journal at the time. And, I had two houses. Q: What did you know about the Register when you were at the Sioux City Journal? A: We used to read it, you know, in the mornings, I knew it was...But I didn't know the background or the history probably as well as I should, but it's a transfer that I was very happy I made afterwards. Q: Again, the job you were given, you took, when you were offered the second time, did you say copy editor? A: Yes, actually, I later learned this. My background was printing management. My bachelor degree is in Printing in Rural Journalism with a Printing Management degree. That was actually my major. And so, I later learned this after I came on board. I originally was going to be the make-up editor, because the make-up editor at that time was transferring to the Tribune. This has never been officially said, only that the make-up editor told me this. That I was to be the make-up editor. But it took me so long to get there, they hired another person in the meantime, Terry Manley, a very close friend of mine. And, so then I ended up on the copy desk. Q: As far as you're concerned was that to your disadvantage or your advantage that you were on the copy desk rather than in the make-up area? A: Well, there was a time when I was on the copy desk that I really enjoyed doing that. I think it was probably an advantage in the long run although, I think probably Terry Manley was a better make-up than I would have been. Q: And also in your move to the Register, you had some of the personal concerns, the fact that you couldn't sell the houses immediately. Did I get that right? A: Yes. Q: Did it play into the decision--the fact of how prestigious the Register was when you did move, was that a concern? A: No, I don't think so. Q: Did you find out at any time during your stay that this was a standout paper? A: Oh yes, definitely, definitely. I had often told people that I made two good decisions in my life. First, to ask my wife to marry me. That's the most important. And taking the job at the Register was the second best decision I ever made. Q: Could you expand on that? Why do you think that's true? A: Just to be able to work for a prestigious paper like that. It just makes one proud to be affiliated with an institution like that. -- <br><br> Section 2: Q: Did you start out, then on the copy desk as the night copy editor? A: One of many, on the old horseshoe rim they had at that time. The slot man would be in the middle and pass out the stories and you'd edit the stories and boil them down and write headlines for them. Q: So, your hours first when you started were what? A: About 6:15 PM till 2 or 2:30 AM. Q: And I've asked this before of other people, but again describe what a slot man does. A: Well, in the Register situation at least, the slot man would be sitting in the middle of the horseshoe desk with the copy editors around the outside. And he would take stories that the city editor had given him, or he or she would take a packet of stories from various wire services, hand them to the copy editor and say, "We need this story boiled down to fifteen inches." And you would take (at that time) paste and cut and tear and edit them and boil down the story, give it back with a headline to the slot man. He would or she would glance at it, see if the headline fit and send it on to the composing room for the linotype operators. Q: So ultimately, it was decision of the slot man as to what got in the paper. A: To a certain degree, yes, to a certain extent. Q: What would be the exception? A: Well, over the slot person, there would be the news editor at the Register who would probably make a decision to give the copy to the slot man to distribute on. Q: Did you like the work? A: Yes. Q: You did? A: Yes. And, as I said before, on the make-up editor's days off or on vacation, occasionally I would sub and fill in there. Q: Back in '69 and the early '70s, what constituted being a make-up editor? What were you doing? A: You would get a list of stories from the city editor or from the news editor and the slot editors and state editors. And find [determine] where that fifteen-inch story would fit on a certain page. Then go down into the composing room and shepherd the work on in and see that it fit. And if the story came up two inches long, well, you would make a quick read of it at deadline time. Throw this paragraph away or whatever. Q: Any stories that you remember about that? I mean you're right down to a deadline and you're seeing that maybe this doesn't fit or we need something more? A: Oh, it happened everyday. Q: Was it stressful? A: It was fun. Q: What was fun about it? A: Just the challenge. Q: Time consuming? A: Time pressing. Not time consuming. Not too bad. Q: Were you getting paid enough as far as you were concerned? A: Yes, although during these years there was the...I don't remember for sure, but it was during a wage freeze nationally. Was it Nixon I think? There was a time there where...so I don't think I got a raise for the first two years, but there was a freeze in effect at that time. I got a substantial raise when I started over what I was getting in Sioux City. So I didn't ever feel bad about not having received a raise for the first two years. Q: Can you tell us what you were getting in Sioux City and what you were hired at? A: I can't remember. It was in the, I think, probably $50 a week difference. I was being paid in the upper one-hundreds in Sioux City and I went over $200 when I came here. But exact figures I wouldn't remember. Q: Over $200 a week. A: Yes. -- <br><br> Section 3: Q: What was it at the Register? You probably were doing a different job because at Sioux City you were doing this column and then you were a copy editor. Maybe you can describe some of the differences clearly, one you're writing, the other you're editing. A: There wasn't that much difference because I had been the columnist-the Action Line Columnist-only a matter of few months. Before that I was on the copy desk, too, there at Sioux City, so there wasn't that much changeover. The columnist, I only did that for three or four months before I took this job. Q: And writing a column is somewhat like reporting? A: It was. What it was, I think the Detroit Free...one of the Detroit [MI] newspapers, started this and it was catching on across [the country], where people would write in when they had a complaint about a product or they had a complaint about some government agency. You would go to that company and try to resolve it. And then you took those few good ones, and you published them. Like we'd get probably, I don't know how many, letters from people who hadn't gotten a magazine subscription forever, you know. I do remember somebody in Florida had moved or something and their bank check had got put in someone else's account. And I think, hundreds of dollars, I remember. And I did get that one solved. I remember that one probably as well as any of them. Q: How did you get it solved? A: I just went to the bank, and they said, "Oops, the computer or something screwed up." This person had been trying for months to do it. It was a change in transfer between banks. Q: When you were at the Register did you do any kind of work like that, that you did at the Journal? Column writing or reporting? A: No, no. I didn't. Well, later when I became an assistant city editor at night, there would be some rewriting and reporting, if there wasn't a reporter around. But no. No bylines. I think I had one byline all the time I was at the Register. Q: And when was that? A: Commuting between Des Moines and Ankeny at two in the morning in a blizzard. And the car right ahead of me, with a wind-chill of sixty below, and the car ahead of me had gone into the ditch. And I stopped and brought him back into town. And I wrote a story of that experience. Q: How soon after did you write that story? A: The next day. In fact, I wrote it on a portable typewriter I had here [at home] and took it in. Q: Did you ever have a desire to do more reporting? A: No. Q: Any kind of writing? A: No. I guess, no. Bylines didn't mean much to me. I guess it was just my nature. Q: Not necessarily bylines, but just the fact that you had written a story? A: Well, I would rewrite and write short, you know, car accidents or something like that on deadline, or something. Q: But you weren't out in the field. A: No. -- <br><br> Section 4: Q: These first few years at the Register, did it live up to your expectations? A: More than, it lived up to my expectations. Q: In what way? A: Just enjoyed it. The professionalism, the sincerity, the camaraderie, just everybody worked together for one goal. Some of the other newspapers that I had worked for, including the Sioux City Journal (I have many friends there yet), but there used to be bickering among employees and that just wasn't the case with the Register. Everybody seemed to be working for the same goal. There was a competition between the Tribune and the Register, but when it boiled down to the nitty gritty, if some outsider tried to pick on you, you'd stick up [for one another]. It was competition; there wasn't controversy between the staff. Q: There wasn't conflict, I guess. A: Conflict, or bickering, but there was competition which made for better newspapers. Q: Anything that you can think of specifically that illustrates that kind of competition? Perhaps a specific story or some of the in-house stuff that went on. A: Yes, I can recall one incident. It involved what was known as the "Bloody Sunday Murders" in downtown Des Moines. I think it was three or four boys were killed in a construction site downtown. You probably remember. Q: Was it near a hotel? A: Yes, maybe it was. It was a building being torn down. And a man was a suspect in that shooting. And he was on the lam and they had been looking for him, and we had been following it very closely. I was on the Register at this time. And they finally caught the man, and we had worked on it, and we had all the background. I had worked very closely with two reporters, Tom Suk and Paul Levitt. We had pretty much the story written and ready to go when he was arrested because we knew a lot of background. And he was arrested at 11:00 in the morning in Nashville [TN] or Memphis [TN], I don't remember where. And he was arrested. We were in the newsroom. The Tribune and the Register shared the same newsroom. One on one side of the room, one on the other end. And, the Tribune's police reporter came up at 2:00, their deadline time, or just past their deadline time, and said "We understand that, his name is Munro and he has been captured" in whatever town it was and the Register's slot man said, "Yes, Memphis." He had known about this for two hours in the same room, but had kept it completely secret. Q: Intentional? A: Yes. So the Tribune wouldn't have it. And that's one instance of the competition that I can remember. Q: Did it get in? A: I think they [the Tribune] did finally run a bulletin; one paragraph that they got in. Maybe didn't make it to all the readers even. Q: Based on the information that this guy got... A: Well, I think they knew he had been arrested somewhere, but not from me. I wasn't on duty at the time when this happened because I didn't come to work until 6:00. But they felt that strongly. Q: Was there any kind of policy against that kind of thing? They're both owned by Cowles, the same employer. How did they handle that? A: I'm not going to name any names now, but there was a very controversial case, and this was Register reporters. We had typewriter ribbons, electric typewriters, when the ribbons were carbon, and then you take and throw the ribbon away. Well, a couple of the Register people took one of the Tribune's tapes and read it and reported on it, and they got a little reprimand on it. They weren't fired, I don't believe. But they were reprimanded on that one. Q: How did you find out? I mean, how would they track that down? A: Probably because they knew that was where the information was, and that was the only way they could get it. Q: Anymore specific about that, like when it was, what year? A: No, I don't think I can remember the year. It would have been in the late '70s or early '80s. And neither of the two people involved with the Register are there anymore. In fact, they have better jobs, probably. They went on. And I don't remember whose tape [they] copied off. I don't know if I ever knew whose tape they copied. Q: My question is, you've got Tribune reporters here, you've got Register reporters here, they are both in the same room. Was there any policy, I mean anything that you were supposed to abide by as set in stone as to (laughs) stealing each other's stories? A: I don't know that there was any written, probably was an unwritten code maybe, respecting the others. But again, I would get there after the Tribune people had gone at that time. And I did go to work for the Tribune. I worked for the Tribune for about 18 months before it closed. -- <br><br> Section 5: Q: And who was your immediate supervisor when you were hired? A: Immediate supervisor would have been Mike Pauley. Mike later left. He left the Register shortly after I got there, within a year I think. And later returned after he went to Florida. Well, he went to Dubuque [IA] and was maybe news editor or something. I don't know. He went to Dubuque-that was his hometown. And then he later went to Florida and then he came back here to the Register after probably four or five years. I don't recall. Q: You worked under him for how many years? A: Oh, just a matter of months. And then Jimmy Larson, one of the greatest newsmen there is and is still on the staff, but in a copyediting role now. He's probably in his '70s. Great newsman. Was the news editor at that time. So, there are layers and layers of bosses. My immediate would have been Mike Pauley at that time, and then probably the next one would have been Jimmy Larson, who was the news editor. It would have been the slot man, Mike Pauley and then Jimmy Larson. Q: How long did you work under him? Jimmy Larson. A: Jim was the news editor...well I changed jobs, but Jim was the news editor there for years. Q: How was he to work for? A: Super. Good newsman, good news judgment, excellent news judgment. Personable. And he later was replaced as news editor under a new regime. He retired at that time, took early retirement, and then came back to work on the copy desk for, I guess, for financial reasons and for...newspapering was in his blood. Q: It may seem obvious to you and other newspaper people, but what makes a good news editor, as a person like Jim was? A: News judgment, quick to react and just knowledgeable of the business. Q: Good writer? A: He probably was. I don't know if he ever wrote anything. An excellent headline writer, excellent headline writer, so I'm sure he was a good writer, but I never saw anything that he wrote. I don't think a good reporter necessarily makes a good editor, or a good editor makes a good reporter. Q: What was that again, you don't think that's true? A: I don't think that a good reporter necessarily would be a good editor and vice versa. Q: Why is that? A: A good editor will probably pay more attention to detail and facts and--not that the reporter won't of course, whereas a good reporter is better at turning a phrase and use of the language. Which I'm not a great writer. I'm a poor writer. Q: (Laughs) Is that right? A: Yes. Q: You were on the Register as the late assistant city editor, as you described. A: For, I think, eleven years. I worked from six, well, there was a change in the city editor's job. Dave Witke was on the copy desk and was one of the assistant slot people and he was named city editor. Again, Dave Witke is an excellent, excellent newsperson. He's been demoted unfortunately over the... [Brian, you may want to footnote this?] Q: I've heard his story. A: And Dave was on the copy desk and I was on the copy desk. When he was named city editor, he asked me if I would become the assistant city editor. I said sure. He moved on to managing editor, but I stayed as an assistant city editor. Q: Was that before he became sports editor? A: Yes, yes. Years before. Q: And then this was the 6 PM to the 2:30 AM [shift] for you. A: Yes, actually those hours coincided with what I worked on the copy desk. Q: Any memorable stories or anecdotes that you can remember during that graveyard shift? Was it the graveyard shift? Did you like it? A: Yes, and one of the, it interrupted the family life. It was bad for family life, those hours. So I didn't like it for that purpose. Yet I liked it better than the 2 o'clock shift start because I was home with the family for the evening meal, although we ate awful early to be at work by six. Q: 2 PM? A: Yes, I liked working six over two because you'd never see the kids if you went in at two. And I shunned any of the other jobs that would have been probably a step up, like a state editor's job. In fact, I was approached to be the state editor and said no. I didn't want to start at 2 o'clock. -- <br><br> Section 6: A: ...and one story, getting back, you were asking, this is one of my more prouder moments in the business. It was toward the end of the Vietnam War and over the wire it came that a person named Vondrak had been captured. He was a pilot and he had been captured. Vondrak, I don't remember his first name, from Iowa. That's all there was. And this was like, we got that word at probably ten o'clock at night. And I thought Vondrak. I was on the late desk, and this time there was probably only one police reporter around. So I thought Vondrak, a name like that, must have some connection to Cedar Rapids [IA], being a Czech name. So, I called information-that's when you called information, you talked to a voice, not a machine in the telephone. And I asked for all the names of Vondrak in Cedar Rapids. There were two Vonderacks in Cedar Rapids. I called them. I said I don't-this was late at night, I probably wouldn't do it today, but at that time I was still young enough to interrupt peoples lives at home and call them-and said, "I don't want to startle you, everything's all right. This may be good news that someone Vondrak had been captured." They said "No, I don't know anybody by that name." So it wasn't that family. I called another one and I finally got one that said "I went to college with a person by that name at the University of Iowa and I think he was from..." I can't remember the name of the town. Then I called and got the mother on the phone and said "I don't want to alert you, but I understand that I have probably some good news" knowing that they had already been notified probably that he was captured. But that he was alive. So I called her and I got who he was, who he was married to, where he'd gone to college. He had been in ROTC student then, and so in the morning newspaper after getting that at ten o'clock, we had a pretty good what we called an "A Head" at that time. It was one of the outside columns in the front page about him, where the wire service only had that someone from Iowa had been captured. Q: So that was a bit of reporting. A: Right, and then, I think the time has changed. You know, I think back...then there was more emphasis to get that late-breaking news that happened after ten o'clock than there is today. In fact the deadlines had been set up. Although the new technology is supposed to speed it up, I think the deadlines have been set up earlier than they used to. And that was maybe a prod to have something in the paper that wasn't on the ten o'clock TV. And try to get as much as you could so there would be nothing for the Tribune to follow up with the next day. And vice versa for the Tribune. They always wanted to get ahead so there wouldn't be anything for the Register the next day. Q: Even though they may be separate stories in and of themselves. A: Right, right. Q: It may be separate stories, you haven't really sweeped them. I don't know. And you talked a little bit about this, you mentioned this, that you wouldn't do it today but you were younger and you decided to call this women after 10 PM. Did you have any second thoughts about that? Why would you now? A: Interrupting people at night. Telemarketer's maybe. (laughs) Q: You got the story. A: And it was a story where I thought probably-if I did connect with the right person- that they would be happy to know he was safe. Or that he was alive. Q: What was, Larson, I think, the editor you worked with. A: Jimmy Larson. He was the news editor. Q: Did you socialize with some of these people like Jim Larson or some of the people you worked with on the ...outside of work? A: I didn't. Others did. I guess I was a family man. Not a whole lot of socialization among families. There was some we did. Not a lot. I guess, personally, I kind of liked to get away from the newsroom, and that atmosphere, in my social life. Although I have very good friends. Terry Manley, I mentioned. Tom Suk, the police reporter. [They] were good friends and we socialized. Otherwise the socialization mostly was company picnics. Although there are others who are very close and do a lot of socializing. -- <br><br> Section 7: Q: Any other stories that you can remember about that shift during those years that you were working at nighttime? A: No. One thing that I always, there's a couple of things that I was thinking about when we were getting ready here. Technology has made some improvements. Cell phones are great. When a police reporter late at night would go off to a car accident, out in Warren County for instance, he would then have to find a telephone to call back on deadline. Again on the late shift, you're working against deadline constantly. To have a cell phone right there in the car, to call back, was a great improvement. Q: Given that example, were you taking down information from a reporter who would be at these scenes? And they'd have the stories composed in their heads? A: No, they usually would just call in the details and we'd compose the story. Q: I imagine that was difficult. A: It was fun. It was fun. It was a challenge. Q: After hanging up with them, I wonder if you had other questions. A: Oh sure. And again, cell phones really are, before cell phones, phones in the car. Another incident when I did some reporting was an Ankeny tornado in '73, I think it was. I was on the late desk. I don't remember what time it hit. I think it was after ten o'clock. We had an intern on the police beat that night. And she, we had heard of the tornado in Ankeny. They didn't know how many casualties or anything. So I sent the reporter out there to cover it and see what she could get. She found a phone, I guess. I don't think we had cell phones. No, I know we didn't. But in the meantime, the lines were out, so she couldn't feed it probably. So she drove back to Des Moines and said, "They wouldn't let me in." I don't know if she didn't have the right credentials or what. But they wouldn't let her in to Ankeny. In the meantime, my neighbor who worked construction had a cell phone in his pick-up. He called me and told me, "We're OK here, and your wife is OK." But they understood that the Hy-Vee store roof was gone. That's what they had heard. Well, the reporter, Lucia Herndon, told me she couldn't get in. I said I could get in because I have Ankeny credentials-you know, driver's license. So then I went out and was able to get in. When I got to the people, I didn't tell them I was from the paper. I just told them my family was there and I needed to get in. One of the fellows who let me in, used to, was a stereotyper, I believe, at one time and now he was from Ankeny and was on the Fire/Rescue crew. He was a volunteer fireman. He knew who I was and he said the morgue has been set up at Northwest School. So I went immediately to the morgue where the two bodies were. I beat Dr. Wooters, the medical examiner, there. When he came in, why, he pronounced them [dead] and said this was all [of the dead] they knew of. So then I called back in and we had the fact that there were only two dead, although there could have been more in the wreckage. But we had a pretty good story because I was able to get in and call it back. Q: How did you call it back when the lines were dead? A: There was, apparently they weren't all down, because I was able to go across the street to a house from the school where the morgue was and use their phone to call back. Q: Have there been other occasions where you were short of people or you need to be out on a cutting, I mean, breaking news story? Where you would leave the desk and you'd go out and take a look around, I mean, just like what you did here in Ankeny? A: Not very many if there were. I don't recall any others. Maybe run downtown, you know, look out the window and something happened out on the corner, something like that occasionally, but I don't recall any others where I went out. Q: Would you use people who were not necessarily journalists to get, such as your neighbor, to get your information for you and maybe have him go out and do a little bit of ...? A: I don't recall doing that. Usually we'd have a police reporter there that could go. But we might ask...yes, there were times when there was a hostage situation in which, while the police reporter was enroute, I would look in the city directory and get a neighbor and call them to try to find out what was going on next door, but not to use them as a source necessarily. Only until your own reporter got on the scene. I had done that several times. Where you would call, look in the city directory and find a house across the street. -- <br><br> Section 8: Q: You've mentioned Jimmy Larson. You worked under five city editors. Anyone in addition to Larson that left a lasting impression on you? A: Oh, Chuck Capaldo. I don't know if you've, he was the Tribune city editor, or was an assistant like I was for years. Then he was made city editor of the Tribune. That's when I went to the Tribune for a short time. He was there. He was a great city editor. Then, after the papers merged, Chuck became city editor for the Register. Dave Witke, of course, was city editor. I would say they were the two... Q: And Randy Evans? A: Randy Evans was present day city editor. Although they don't call them city editors anymore. They are metro Iowa editors. And he is now assistant managing editor. He oversees the city and state operations. Those three are outstanding, the three outstanding editors that I remember. Not that the others weren't. But they were really a step above. Randy Evans was probably...two things that he stood out for that I remember. His organization of the major air crash at Sioux City. He was on the ball and he got people up there and he got them in and out. Did an excellent job. And the flood. Geneva Overholser and Dave Westphal were great newspaper people. They got a lot of credit deservingly for the flood. But Randy Evans and Rick Jost got that flood started. Maybe I'm giving less credit to the other two than deserving, and they did deserve it, but they were the ones [Evans and Jost], in my estimation, that organized that flood campaign. Q: Well, there are countless stories about the flood coverage, getting the Register out. What was it that they did, where others may have fallen short? A: Well, I think it was Randy and Rick who really pushed. "Let's do it." I really think they were the ones that said we can do it. And I wasn't there, so I don't know. I just get that impression. Q: Tell us the story because I can't remember it. And obviously our viewers don't know it. A: It was one of the few times I went in, in later years. Volunteered to go in. It was a Sunday morning and they lost all power to the building, I believe. Q: The Register? A: Yes, I think so. So what were they going to do. And they'd probably gone and dispensed publishing or not. I'm really eighth hand, this is eighth hand on it, so I'm not the one that should be telling this, going into the archives and maybe I'm wrong. But, it's my impression that they pushed. "Let's do it. We can do it." So they set up a temporary newsroom out in West Des Moines [IA]. I went in to the office downtown. Well, I'd gone to church in the morning ,so it was probably eleven o'clock or noon when I decided to go in. Maybe even one o'clock when I got in there. Of course, all the operations had already been decided then. And they hired a room in, maybe a room or two rooms or three rooms, out in West Des Moines where they had power. Took their portable computers and wrote the stories and then I think they took it to Indianola to do the plates and then flew the plates, I believe, to Iowa City [IA], didn't they, to have them run in the presses, I think, in Iowa City, as I recall. Q: That's strange. A: They flew down, I'm quite sure, after the plates were made, to Iowa City. But they made the plates in Indianola. Q: And so I can't remember if everything got out on time, do you remember? A: I don't remember either. But there was a morning newspaper the next day. It was only four pages, but it was a paper. Q: It's better than nothing. A: Yes. And I thought the Register...two things I thought they should have won a Pulitzer for. One was that flood coverage. I think they did a tremendous service, and I wasn't really part of it. It was done by Randy and the others on the staff. Q: Where were you at the time? A: I was there. But at this point in my career, I was kind of out of the news end of it. I was kind of an ombudsman-sort-of-person, more than anything. Q: Because this was four years from your retirement in '97. A: Well, yes. But more it was...my job description had changed. As an early, early desk person, I was leaving at 3:30 in the afternoon. That's really when the news was really starting to boil in the editing end of it. -- <br><br> Section 9: Q: And going back a little bit, what were the circumstances of your being offered a job at the Tribune? A: Oh, I guess they just wanted...I had been the late city desk person for eleven years and my family was...I'd been away from the family, and Bill Maurer was assistant, or he was managing editor of the Tribune at the time. One afternoon I was working here in the house and they called me and asked, "Would you be interested?" There was an opening there and he just asked me if I would be interested. And I said, "Sure." Difference between night and day is what it was. Q: And it was because of your family, the fact that you could be with your family more. A: Right, right. Q: And again, what was that job? A: It was an assistant city editor. I was doing a lot of editing of reporters' copy. And actually I served as the city editor on Saturdays because the city editor was gone. So I was the acting city editor on Saturdays. And I was also editor of the religion page, but I did that also on the Register in my later years. Q: Did that entail anything different that what you would have been editor...? A: No, just laying out the page, getting the stories, deciding what stories, the play and editing it. Q: And did you like your position at the Tribune? Were you happy there? A: Yes, yes I was, although the Register was always my first love and loyalty. Although I was loyal, you know, when I was at the Tribune for eighteen months, but I was always a Register person. Q: What was the distinction do you think? A: I think the competition, back-jealously and what-have-you from the previous years. Although I admired the Tribune staff, especially Chuck Capaldo and Suzanne Nelson and the others I worked with there. Q: Do you recall any time where there was an effort to unionize or organize guilds? A: Yes, shortly after I came. The one thing that really bothered me when I joined the Register, and because of my printing background, the typographical union, not the newsroom, was threatening to strike. There were four of us. I don't remember how many there were. There was myself, who had only been there a month probably, two months at the most, I think only a month. Lyle Boone and a couple of other fellows brought us out to DMACC [Des Moines Area Community College] giving us lessons on printing. "Scab School" is what some would call it, probably. And that bothered me because I was also subbing occasionally as the make-up editor down there, working on those days when the make-up editors [were gone], working with them [the printers] and they knew I had gone to this other school. That bothered me a little-well it bothered me a lot but, and I actually complained to Jimmy Larson about it, and he saw to it that I didn't have to go back to the classes anymore. I don't remember. That was probably in '70. Then there was an organization, this is probably what you were alluding to, when there was an organization to organize a guild at the Register. That would have been '72 or so, something like that. I had belonged to the guild at Sioux City. In fact I was an officer. I think I was what they called a comptroller. I just saw, mainly I had to see to it that everyone paid his dues. And so I'm not against the guild necessarily, but I was opposed to them organizing here. Primarily, I think, because Iowa has a right-to-work law and as long as everybody isn't going to belong there, I just think that the guild would not have been very effective at the Register. I knew there were a lot of people that could have gone in there and put out the paper by themselves. Very capable of doing it, if the guild would ever go on strike. And I came to the Register making more money than I had made in Sioux City, plus the fact that I remembered all those, what do you call it, when you paid in for the strikes. You know, you pay part of your check for the strikes and your dues. And they used to take quite a chunk out of your paycheck for that. So I was opposed to that guild movement at that time. And one of my close friends, who is still a close friend, was a guild person in Sioux City. He rote me a letter here hinting that what a great, how services a guild can do. "So I hope you keep that in mind," he said. I later asked him, years later, had the headquarters asked him to write that letter and he said, "Yes." Q: Could you ever see a case where the guild would be needed when you were at the Register? A: I just, I think unions have done a great thing, but I just don't think it would be effective. If you have a right-to-work law voted in, where everybody would have to belong, then it might. But as long as it would be divided, half the newsroom, I just don't think a guild would be effective. That's my personal opinion.