After spending 10 years working in small community newspapers, I was named executive director of the Iowa Press Association in 1980. The IPA had a staff of four people including me. We offered our members a convention, a weekly bulletin and about $200,000 a year in national ad sales. We also represented them at the statehouse.

In 1983, the IPA merged with the Iowa Daily Press Association to become the Iowa Newspaper Association, increasing our staff by 12 members. We added several training seminars and an increased emphasis on ad sales to our mission. A year later we formed the Iowa Newspaper Foundation to concentrate on our educational efforts.

By the time I retired in 2015, ad sales had topped $18 million, our staff had grown to 24 people, we were selling advertising to newspapers all over America and Canada and the Iowa Newspaper Foundation was the largest newspaper foundation in the nation when measured by its programming or its net worth.

All that in flyover country.

There were many “secrets to our success”. Certainly, having a board of publishers allowing us to hire a talented staff and keep them motivated and rewarded was one obvious one. But the real secret was the heart and soul of our organization… our members.

When I say that, you may think of the Des Moines Register or the Cedar Rapids Gazette or some of the other metro dailies in the state. They certainly played a key role in our success, both financially and politically. But the power of the mom-and-pop weekly newspaper is mighty as well.

I remember one small weekly publisher in particular who was very critical of the INA. He was quite vocal about his displeasure with the way the association was operating and a friend of his suggested he get on the board of directors. Once on the board, he began seeing things in a different light. He saw programs for smaller papers that he didn’t know existed. He saw ad sales totals for those papers that convinced him that membership in the organization was more than a worthwhile investment… it was a downright bargain. He started becoming a cheerleader for the INA!

He became one of our best board presidents ever. After serving on the board, he was diagnosed with cancer and told he had only a few years to live. By then we were close friends and he and I had several long phone conversations about his preparing to die.

I was a pallbearer at his funeral. As the other pallbearers, all from his community, and I got into the van at the church following the funeral, we started heading for the cemetery for the burial service. I thought it was taking quite a while to get there until I started picking up on what the others in the van were saying as we drove by various buildings in town…

“We never would have gotten that new school without the newspaper’s support.”

“That new doctors’ clinic would have never been built without Mike’s editorials.”

“We wouldn’t have that cable service if he hadn’t criticized the city council so often that they finally saw the light.”

“That new retirement home is a wonderful new addition to town… thanks to the paper.”

We finally drove past the modest newspaper building, the publisher’ home and on to the cemetery.

I would hate to think what would have happened to that town if that publisher and that newspaper had not been there to serve those citizens.

Every community needs a newspaper. Social media is often nothing more than rumors and can’t replace the human caring for the community. Regional and national news can’t afford to cover your town like your local newspaper. Imagine what your town would be without your local newspaper, then do everything you can to keep that from happening.