A few months ago an Omaha World-Herald reporter asked if I was the longest serving of any current Nebraska newspaper editor. Though I have been in this editor’s position for 52 years and have sat behind the same Alma brand desk for 47 years, I didn’t know how to answer him. It was a question I hadn’t considered. I do know I hold the record for both the editor’s and publisher’s title at The Superior Express. I also know I am far from obtaining the oldest title of any editor in Nuckolls County.
That record is held by the late F. A. Scherzinger of the Nelson Gazette. In 1950, the Omaha World-Herald published a story about Editor Scherzinger who had been the Gazette’s owner and editor since the spring of 1886. That was 64 years and counting.
Newspapers are currently experiencing difficult times but I am confident newspapers will adapt and times will get better for the need for news and information isn’t going away though how it is delivered may change.
Being informed is a multi-direction street that requires the cooperation of several people.
A few days ago, a reader called this newspaper office and complained because we hadn’t published a story that involved her family. I agreed it was a story that deserved more notice than it got and asked if she had called the newspaper to tell us about. “No,” she replied, “It was on Facebook and so are you.” I tried to explain Facebook is selective about who the posts are shared with. Posting on Facebook doesn’t automatically mean everyone will have an opportunity to see the post.
And the same is true for a newspaper. Placing an advertisement in a newspaper doesn’t mean everyone will see and read the advertisement but everyone will have an equal opportunity to do so. The papers are posted on the internet, for sale at many places and available by subscription.
Potential readers are also responsible for seeking out the needed information.
Friday I saw three Facebook posts which I thought expressed a somewhat angry tone because those responsible hadn’t been told what was happening.
One was asking if Santa Claus was going to visit Superior and talk with area youngsters this season. From reading the newspaper, I knew he had been at the Superor Auditorium and planned to be at the Farmers & Merchants Bank later that week.
Another asked if it was still possible to ride a hayrack through Candy Cane Lane. It was the scheduled had been printed in the prior issue of The Express.
The third post placed during the Once Upon Christmas event in downtown Superior wanted to know if there was something going on in Superior. I suspect they were aware of all the extra traffic generated by the event but hadn’t read the advance stories which told why the traffic would be generated.
In all three cases, the people responsible for the questions had failed to do their part in seeking out information. I wanted to snap back and ask why they didn’t read the local newspaper. I suspect Corey Kopsa at KRFS would liked to have asked why they didn’t listen to his radio station.
The answers they were seeking had been given in multiple newspaper stories and advertisements and likely on radio broadcasts.
They couldn’t argue about not having access to a newspaper. They obviously had access to the internet and the answers could be found on the portion of our website that the public has free access to.
The old Nelson Gazette editor once told the World-Herald reporter about the hard time the weeklies had in the panicky 1890s, In those years, many editors didn’t know where their next nickel was coming from.
He said, “There were weeks in those days when not a single nickel came across the counter. At times, I wasn’t sure I could hang on, but the Gazette has never missed an issue.”
Mr. Scherzinger had been the Gazette’s editor since acquiring ownership somewhat unexpectedly in the spring of 1886. In 1950, it was thought no other Nebraska editor had a longer record of continuous service. It is possible but unlikely his record has been broken.
He explained how he arrived in Nelson. “I was an Ohio boy who took Horace Greeley’s advice to heart. I drifted out here because I played a horn and I had heard through a friend there was a chance to play for a band in Nelson”
He landed in the Nuckolls County seat broke and looking for a job. His job quest took him to the Gazette print shop. There the editor, in business for two years, offered to sell him this newspaper.
“I told him I didn’t have enough money to buy breakfast. He offered to buy my breakfast and told me to come back. The next day he said I didn’t need to buy the newspaper. I could give a chattel mortgage and take it over. I didn’t know what a chattel mortgage was, but that was the way I got into the newspaper business.”
The Gazette has come close to missing an issue on more than one occasion the first followed a power failure that lasted several days. Mr. Scherzinger recalled, “We got out a little four-page sheet (probably by using handset type and printing it on a little hand-fed job press the printer powered by stepping on a treadle. The Express still has such a press and cases of handset type but I’m the only employee to have ever set type with the individual lead letters and I was never good at it.) When the power came back on, we made the regular issue by the end of the week.”
In the 1970s, The Express was called on to assist the Gazette when a basement wall of the brick building which housed the Gazette fell following a heavy rain.
Controversial elections are not new.
In the 1880s, a courthouse fight provided the Gazette with lively copy and the editor took an active part in the scrap.
Superior, Nuckolls County’s largest town, sought to get the courthouse away from Nelson. An election was held.
“Everybody outside of Superior was against the move,” the old editor recalled. “And the courthouse stayed here by a close margin of the votes. I was on the local counting board and the vote for the Nelson was unanimous, but we counted a couple of votes for Superior just to be on the safe side.”
In 1948 the Gazette took over Nelson’s other weekly, the Herald.
In his last years as editor, Mr. Scherzinger’s son, Vic, assisted his father and eventually succeeded him as editor. After Vic’s untimely death in the 1960s, the paper was sold to the Ostdiek family. Jim Menke served as the editor for decades.
After more than 50 years of Ostdiek family ownership, in December of 2009, Allen Ostdiek sold the paper to the owners of The Superior Express who combined the Lawrence Locomotive and Nelson Gazette papers to form the Nuckolls County Locomotive-Gazette which continues to be published weekly. Thankfully Allen has continued to be a regular contributor.
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