Route 66: Print day at a 145-year-old Kansas newspaper
By 4 p.m. that day, Machelle Smith moved to her next task. Seated at her cluttered desk inside the Galena Sentinel-Times newspaper's office on Route 66 near the Missouri border, she converted each page of the upcoming issue to PDFs to send to the printer before the 5 p.m. deadline.
The paper's masthead lists Smith as the operations manager. The 58-year-old Galena native calls herself its 'jack of all trades.'
'I've done everything,' she said above the crackle of a nearby police scanner.
The newspaper has existed in one form or another in this part of southeastern Kansas since 1880, three years after the town was founded around the discovery of lead in the area. Its current iteration is the result of a 1945 merger between The Galena Times Republican and The Galena Sentinel.
Eighteen years ago, Smith was working at an area restaurant when a friend asked if she was interested in a career change. The friend's brother owned the newspaper, then called the Sentinel-Times, and needed to replace the departing editor.
She had no journalism experience. Still, she took the job.
'For the first few months it was me by myself trying to figure out how to do everything,' she said.
Eventually, she learned how to put the paper together and how to operate the newspaper's print shop in the rear of the newsroom — its services include business cards, invitations, stickers, banners, posters, fliers and the like. For the last three years, the paper has printed posters for the town's birthday festival (called Galena Days) and donated 10 subscriptions as door prizes.
Last December, the newspaper's longtime publisher, David Nelson, died at 72. An engineer by trade, his obituary says he bought the paper in 1977, in part, 'so people at least had a place to publish an obituary free of charge' (they're still published free of charge).
Local business owner Brian Jordan purchased the paper from Nelson's widow.
Jordan, said Smith, 'believes if the newspaper dies, the town dies.'
More than 3,200 U.S. newspapers have folded in the last 20 years, according to a study from Northwestern University's Medill Local News Initiative. At least 3.5 million people live in counties the study called news deserts, places with 'no local news outlet consistently producing original content.'
The Galena paper is, of course, not immune to the pressures facing news outlets across the country. The staff size has remained virtually unchanged since Smith joined. There's proofreader Tia Day, who recently moved to St. Louis and works remotely. Webmaster Shayla Sturgis was once an intern who also works for a Native American tribe in northeast Oklahoma.
Advertising director Aniston Johnson, 22, joined the paper 10 months ago. Sometimes, she'll grab a stack of papers and head to businesses in surrounding communities to see if they'll buy an ad.
'It's a little difficult,' she said.
Like Smith, she multitasks. Last month, she wrote about a state award for a school kitchen manager.
'That one was a tough one for me, because it was my first time doing that,' she said. 'It was a little nerve-wracking.'
She also pens — literally — articles on historical events. At her desk, she has a handwritten draft of an article on an early 16th-century 'dancing plague' in an area of what is now France.
The paper has two freelance journalists who cover sports, Smith said, with plans to add more. They're also planning to devote the middle four pages to more Route 66 coverage as next year's centennial approaches. Kansas has by far the shortest segment of the route of all eight states at 13.2 miles, and two associations dedicated to route preservation: Kansas Historic Route 66 Association and Route 66 Association of Kansas (Smith sits on the latter's board).
Having finished uploading the PDFs of the latest issue, Smith closed the office for the day. The paper, once printed in Joplin, is now printed about 120 miles east near Branson, Missouri.
About 1,200 copies were delivered to the newsroom before 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when Smith arrived. On her to-do list that morning: Take 594 copies to the post office to mail to subscribers and the rest to newspaper racks around town.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
05-08-2025
- New York Times
After 50 Years of Writing, Jamaica Kincaid Insists She's Still an Amateur
In June, I visited Jamaica Kincaid at her home in Vermont, and not long after we met, she walked me over to a bust of Thomas Jefferson looming over a shaded corner of her garden, introducing me to him like he was an old friend or a hostage. 'Very controversial, but we will explain,' she said. 'When summer is over, he spends the winter in the basement.' Then, she showed me a plant called the twin-leaf, which has one frond divided into two nearly identical leaflets. 'The two halves are not identical — is that Jefferson or no?' Kincaid asked, showing me the fraternal leaves with professorial wonder and not a small amount of delight. Its scientific name, Jeffersonia diphylla, was given to it by the botanist Benjamin Smith Barton, one of Thomas Jefferson's contemporaries, 'before anyone thought of his twin nature,' she said, of the president's duality. Kincaid is an admirer of Jefferson's writing on horticulture, so when she discovered this plant, it appealed to her; she saw that it spoke to his fundamental contradiction as both a theorist of democratic liberty and slaver. 'One has to contemplate these histories,' Kincaid said. 'And so, I find him a good person to have a conversation with.' At 76, Kincaid is both youthful and monumental, a down-to-earth person possessed of a towering intellect. Although she has shrunk some over the years, she still stands at nearly six feet. Her dark brown hair was parted down the center of her scalp, woven into two cute plaits, little commas curling near her shoulders. She wore a silver watch with the clock face on the inside of her wrist as a tribute to her late father. Her laugh, which I heard often, was filtered through her accent, an undulating Antiguan inflection that swayed like a gently rocked boat. Kincaid's sprawling garden sits on a bountiful property in North Bennington, beside a house originally built and inhabited by Robert H. Woodworth, a pioneer of time-lapse photography. Here she begins developing her ideas, influenced by the cultivated wildness outside. In an essay included in her new book, 'Putting Myself Together: Writing, 1974-,' to be published on Aug. 5 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, she asserts that, rather than creating a garden in the conventional way — overdetermined by the gardener's expectations — she favors a looser approach. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
02-08-2025
- New York Times
Oh Hello, Corn Risotto
Good morning! Today we have for you: A corn risotto for corn lovers (me) A bright and tangy Venezuelan sauce to pair with pretty much any grilled protein Plus, tequila sunrises for summer sunsets It is only here, in this newsletter that goes out to like-minded food and cooking enthusiasts, that I feel comfortable listing the following examples of how much I love corn: Saving any and all stripped cobs in order to nibble on the remaining corn nubs and corn milk before making corn stock Holding a 'how many corns can you eat' contest with myself at every cookout Singing the Irving Berlin classic 'Snow,' but with 'corn' subbed in for every mention of 'snow' So yes: I love corn, and we all know how I feel about rice, so this corn risotto recipe from Jessica Battilana, adapted by Emily Weinstein, calls to me each summer. If you don't want to make the corn stock, which resourcefully uses the spent cobs as well as the dark-green leek tops, crack open your favorite chicken stock. Folding in a little bit of whipped cream at the end adds a luxurious lightness, but the dish is just as rich and delicious without it. And I have to call out the readers who noted, in the comments, their lily-gilding additions of lump crab meat or, served alongside, lobster. Gorgeous. Can I have dinner at your place? I could sing a really cool corn song for my supper. … Featured Recipe View Recipe → Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Hill
02-08-2025
- The Hill
The extraordinary life of a girl called ‘Champ'
CHICAGO — As I write this, people are gathering in Chicago to bury an Ohio coal miner's daughter who came to this city in the early 1950s. They are celebrating a social worker and community activist who has affected thousands of lives over the last eight decades in this city. As the Sun-Times reported, her 'backbone and willpower fueled positive change in Chicago for decades.' Angela Piazza Turley was a force to be reckoned with — both the irresistible force and the immovable object when it came to fighting for others. She was also my mother. The writer George Bernard Shaw once said that unreasonable people expect the world to conform to them. He then added that that was why all history is made by unreasonable people. My mother was one of those brilliantly unreasonable people. As the baby of five, I spent much of my early years clinging for dear life on my mother's skirts as she confronted slum landlords, abusive husbands, and gang bangers in the Uptown area of Chicago. Time and again, I would squeeze her hand with that look of 'what do we do now?' She already seemed to know what to do. Growing up in a coal mining town in Ohio, my mother knew poverty and prejudice. She would never forget either. It created a solid core within her, harder and tougher than anthracite coal. Some nights, she would go to sleep looking at the burning crosses on the nearby hill, a message from the local Ku Klux Klan that she and the other Italians were not welcome in the valley. She learned that you had to fight for a better life. Her father, Dominick, was one of the earliest organizers of the United Mine Workers until he contracted black lung. At Yorkville High School, she was called 'Champ' for her feisty, indomitable energy. She had a certain tomboy beauty with olive skin and penetrating hazel eyes. Courtesy of Jonathan Turley After World War II, she caught the attention of a young veteran, Jack Turley. This string-bean Irish street kid making scraps as a photographer was not exactly what my grandparents had in mind for a suitor. He faced an insurmountable wall of separation policed by my pint-sized Sicilian grandmother, Josephina. The two gradually came up with a way to meet that even my grandmother could not refuse: doing crosswords in the bay window of their grocery store. It worked. She believed in him, and, when he said he wanted to be an architect, they decided that he should study under arguably the most famous architect of the time: Mies van der Rohe, who developed the modern steel and glass structures that transformed cities. It was an act of sheer hubris, if not insanity. The two arrived late on a snowy night in Chicago with $1.37 in their pockets. They stopped in a shop and ordered the only thing that they could afford: a cup of coffee. Before they left that night, my mother had a job as a waitress. He would become one of Mies's closest associates and, after his death, a partner at Skidmore Owings and Merrill, who helped design some of the most famous buildings in Chicago and around the world. With my parents' success came the ability to help others. They founded organizations that would have a significant impact on this city, including one of the first inner-city community credit unions to provide local businesses and families access to loans. She was president of Jane Addams Hull House and the founder of an array of organizations that fought for better housing, education, and safety for the poorest of the city. She helped create one of the first shelters for abused women and a group to maintain support for our public schools. She ran for city council in the 46th Ward, and the Chicago Tribune described her as the 'scrapper' from Uptown seeking to transform the poorest areas into decent places to live. She was all that — fearless; the embodiment of pure will. I remember going into slums with her as she faced down violent landlords and pimps. On one occasion, she and other mothers literally chased pimps and gang bangers out of a playground and a low-income building. I can still see the face of one pimp as a mix of amazement and amusement at this tough Sicilian mother with two young children in tow, pushing him into the street. I looked at her with that same 'What do we do?' look, but she did not flinch. She had that crazy Sicilian look that said, 'I am ready to go all the way, are you?' I was convinced that we were dead. But he never came back. My parents' success also gave my mother the opportunity to have something she had dreamed of as a little girl growing up during the Depression: a beautiful home filled with family. They bought one of the oldest houses in Uptown near the lake, with a room for each of their five children. When she first walked through that house, she stopped in the backyard and smiled as she came face to face with a giant Ohio buckeye. It was love at first sight. She would later fill the house with a steady stream of people who were struggling or foreign students seeking opportunities in the U.S. That house was her projection of herself in this world: a loving and protected space, large and open to others. For her, the house echoed with the dreams of a little girl in the depression; it meant safety, family, and continuity. After my father's death, my mother only had one request — she wanted to die in that house, not some hospital or hospice. She and the house slowly deteriorated together; gradually and inexorably. My siblings and I struggled to keep the old furnace and pipes working, to keep our promise. She would pass in her room with the ivy-framed windows looking out on Hazel Street, just a few days before her 98th birthday. Her death was hardly unexpected. It is a moment that comes for all of us, but few are ready to say goodbye when the time comes. When her health took a sudden turn for the worse, I rushed to the airport to be with her, only to have the airport shut down due to a raging storm. For the first time, she was out of reach. She died as I waited at the gate. My last moment with her had come a week earlier. I sat late at night at the end of her bed, staring at her and trying to hold it together. I had to catch a flight back to Washington in a few hours. I couldn't say a thing; I just looked at her with the same 'What do we do now?' look. I think that somehow, she knew. She suddenly sat up and looked straight at me with those beautiful hazel eyes and smiled. She then threw me a kiss. She then fell back to sleep. It was as if she were saying, 'You're going to be okay. You can take it from here.' And it was the last thing that my mother ever said to me. She had always been there. In the toughest situations from the slums to the streets, I knew that I only had to hold more tightly; hold on to her. We would get out of there … together. She was always my guiding light, my North Star. Now she is gone. What do you do when your North Star supernovas, leaving just a black hole in the very center of your life that seems to suck in the very light around you? 'What do we do now?' She did not have to say. We know now. You hold on tighter to those you love and you stand your ground. Angela left behind five children, 13 grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren. She left a legacy of thousands of lives made better for her being there when they needed her most. This week, we will gather to bid farewell to Angela Turley, but not to her legacy. That will live and grow with the city she loved. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling book ' The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,' which is dedicated to his mother.
