‘The daily newspaper has been a big part of my life’
Sam Kurtz, 74, BUTLER TWP. — started his newspaper reading habit as a boy delivering papers, and it has stayed with him well into the digital age.
Kurtz reads the paper each day, though slightly differently than in past years. He reads weekday and Saturday newspapers on his iPad and reads the print edition on Sundays.
“The daily newspaper has been a big part of my life,” he said. “I got up at 4:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday for years to deliver the paper. I am still an early riser.”
Sam Kurtz has memories that stretch back to the Journal-Herald — Cox’s former morning paper - which he began delivering around the age of 10. “I do remember when I had to quit. I was 16 and delivering papers in my 1955 Chevy Bel Air convertible. I would have delivered through high school graduation, but I was not allowed.”
In 1958, when he was 13, he won a contest sponsored by the Dayton Daily News and Journal-Herald. The victory allowed him to rub shoulders with the Cincinnati Reds and take an interesting route to the Queen City.
The paperboys who obtained the most new customers on their newspaper route were flown from Dayton to Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport in a Grumman Seaplane and then were able to take a helicopter to the iconic WLW radio tower above the old Crosley Field where the Reds once played.
“I remember the game well,” Kurtz said. “The Reds won 11-7 with Bob Purkey beating Lew Burdette and the Braves.”
Reading newspaper stories as a child stayed with him after high school.
“In college, I majored in English and I think a great deal of my interest in the English language came from reading the paper,” Kurtz said.