PAPER TIGER
Betty Weesner had the same job for almost 60 years and never
got a promotion. She would have complained to the boss, but she was the boss—both
the editor and the publisher of The Republican, the oldest newspaper
in Hendricks County. One hundred seventy years old to be exact. Betty always liked to be exact.
Betty passed away last week at the age of 90.
Since 1890, The
Republican has had only three editors. When I reached their office to send
my condolences, her long-time assistant Betty Bartley said, “Yeah, some newspapers have that many editors in a year.”
Betty Weesner started her career at The Republican in
the late ’30s—when she was 10—writing school news. The editor was a crusty old
journalist who also happened to be her father. The publisher was a crusty old
journalist, too. (Also her father.) “My dad paid me a dollar a week. I was in it for the money,” she once kidded
me.
In the 1950s, she graduated from the IU School of Journalism
(rare for a woman at the time) and took over for her dad in the mid ’60s. The
tiny storefront on Main Street in Danville has housed the newspaper for more
than a century, having moved from a couple of other locations over the years.
During Betty’s 60-year career as editor, she didn’t miss a single issue, even
battling snowstorms to make her deadlines. “People love their local paper,” she
said. “When we mess up, we hear about it.”
The old building is chock-full of, well, everything, but
mostly stacks of newspapers going back decades. There’s also an old linotype
machine and wood type from the Civil War. Up until just a few years ago, the paper was laid
out the old-fashioned way by cutting and pasting news copy onto story boards,
then sending the proofs off to the printer. They went digital about five years
ago.
Betty’s view of what was worthwhile for her publication echoed
her father’s philosophy. He was once asked why Lindbergh’s crossing of the
Atlantic was not reported in The
Republican back in 1927. “Because Lindbergh was not from Hendricks County,”
said the late Edward J. Weesner. Betty had a more lax policy. “If you want to
get in The Republican you have to either be born in Hendricks
County, live in Hendricks County, work in Hendricks County or get in trouble in
Hendricks County.” I once asked her to print my humor column each week and she
pretty much told me that unless I was thrown in the local pokey, she couldn’t
justify putting my name in her newspaper.
Betty believed in local newspapers. “They confirm the gossip
you’ve heard all week,” she once told me. She was an influential force in the
community for decades and still covered town council news until just a few
years ago. Even from her nursing home the last few months, she read each issue,
occasionally pointing out a typo, but she was more apt to praise her tiny but
loyal staff for their hard work.
In 2007, I interviewed Betty for my TV segment. The story earned
an Emmy award. I went to Danville to
tell her about the honor, but she said she still couldn’t mention me in her
weekly Edition.“But it’s only noon,” she told me. “Plenty of time for you to still
get arrested.”
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