From Mona’s desk Spring, turkeys & NPA are here
Spring has officially arrived. I know because wild turkeys have returned to our yard. We usually have anywhere from a couple to a half dozen come to the yard in the morning or early evening to feed on left over birdseed. They appear in the spring and they leave in the autumn.
Last year we had three hens who showed up almost daily. I called them “Crimp,” “Crazy” and “Cook.” Crimp had a limp, Crazy spooked easily and Cook because, well, what do you usually do with a turkey?
This spring, so far, I haven’t seen the three hens, at least not to recognize them. On Easter Sunday, I saw a tom strut in our driveway as two hens checked out the birdseed. Neither had a limp. I wonder if Crimp survived the winter. It’s not unrealistic to think a wild turkey with a bad leg might not make it through heavy snows and bitter cold.
Another sign of spring is in the Nebraska Press Association (NPA) annual convention. Donnis, Kelli and I will be in Lincoln this weekend to network with peers, hopefully pick up an award or two for the Chief and learn more about how we can continue to bring you, our readers, the best community newspaper possible.
It’s no secret that print media is undergoing tough times. We’re not alone, there are a lot of businesses that have tough times right now. However, if community newspapers go away, it will be a loss beyond economics. It will be a historical loss.
If there are no community newspapers, where will local history be recorded?
“But I have my family photos on my phone,” someone may say.
One hundred years from now, where will your phone be? Where will those photos be? Where will the historical information be?
Museums are filled with information for those who want to research their families. Births, deaths, engagements, marriages, it’s there, along with photos that capture the era. The clothes, the hair, the buildings, it’s all there. The ads of the past are treasures as well, letting us know when a new electric kitchen stove cost $84.50 cash (1936), when beef roast went on sale at 49 cents a pound (1950) and when women wrestlers from Philadelphia, Pa. and Mobile Ala. came to wrestle at the Custer County Fairgrounds (also 1950).
Yes, the world-wide-web will have a lot of information saved for us to browse. However, have you ever entered a search only to have not dozens or hundreds of results but thousands? Will researchers of the future have the patience to browse it all to find that one tidbit of info to complete a personal picture they are building? Will they dig past the national and international in an attempt to find that local sentence they are looking for? In twenty years, will we scroll through two decades of Facebook posts or phone photos to find that first photo of a child, a video of a grandchild walking or to re-visit a wedding ceremony?
Your local newspapers, through archives, through what is saved by museums and through what is digitally saved will continue to be a wealth of historical information. Case in point: Our own “Out of the Past” is one of our most popular features. If we did not have a physical archive, we could not look back at our local history.
I realize that by your very reading this column, I am preaching to the choir, I am addressing you who find value in the printed news and history. The question is, how do we reach those who don’t understand the value of the printed newspaper?
In honor of NPA, if you happen to be in conversation with someone who isn’t a subscriber, encourage them to get a subscription. We offer paper and digital subscriptions. I prefer paper because the last time the powers-that-be upgraded our website, everything on the former website disappeared, gone as if never written. It will most likely happen again if we upgrade our website.
Paper lives on in archives, museums and libraries preserving history and, in the case of the hopefully preserving NPA prize-winning journalism in 2023 as well.