Changes.

Recently, I looked back in our archives and was reminded that the announcement that I had acquired the Sun Times appeared in the Sun Times on January 3, 2008.

I’m well into my 18th year here. And that was my 51st birthday.

Eighteen years in one place. At one job.

That’s pretty good for someone that spent a lot of years as a “Gypsy Printer.”

For those not familiar with the inky side of newspapers, Gypsy Printers were around as recently as the seventies.

As soon as I was old enough, I joined the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union. It’s easier to call it the IPPAU.

I was sixteen, and planned to have completed my apprenticeship by the time I graduated from high school.

Once I was a journeyman, I would “travel the card.” Union Printers would take a travel card and make the rounds of the newspaper pressrooms around the country. In the winter, a printer would head south. A winter circuit for a union printer might mean making the rounds of The Tennessean, in Nashville, Tennessee. Next, you could head down to the Post & Courier in Charleston, SC. Or maybe the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer.

Atlanta was another great town to spend the winter in, with two newspapers, The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. When I was an apprentice, they were two newspapers. They combined in 1982.

For the summertime, the route might be Seattle and Portland. In Montana, you might “slug up” in Billings or Great Falls. “Slug up” was when you would put a lead slug with your name on it on the roster board at the newspaper you were going to work at.

By 1973 the IPPAU was pretty much gone. There was a hostile takeover by another union.

Still, I did my “apprenticeship” at printing plants in Atlanta, then North Carolina… and then I hit the road, traveling around the country; at first in a 1969 Chevy pickup, with my toolbox in the bed, along with my Harley in the back and a bundle of inky work clothes in the cab.

In 2006 or 2007, I got fed up with “corporate” newspapers. I left my job as production manager for several North Carolina newspaper printing plants and was in no rush to find the next job. After several months, I became stir crazy and put an ad for work as a pressman in a few western states… Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico. But the panic in newspapers had spread west, and no one was hiring.

Then the previous owners of this publication, Ron and Cindy Dauwalder, reached out to me. “Do you want to by a newspaper?” Ron asked.

I probably shouldn’t repeat my response in these pages.

But I thought it over and figured it might be worth the trip to see Montana. I had never been here before. It was late fall, I think, so boarded the pup and packed the Chevy Duramax and headed to Big Sky Country.

As I met with people in town, they told me that they wanted me to “buy the newspaper.” “Why,” I asked.

They wanted to see their local newspaper survive.

Ron, Cindy and I met after I had been here a week. I was about to make an offer; Ron and Cindy made a counter-offer before I could speak.

I was about to be a publisher.

I put my home in Lumberton, North Carolina up for sale. My girlfriend and I (well, mostly her) packed up everything. I drove my truck, and my girlfriend took the U Haul.

The night we arrived, the winds were howling and the temperature was hovering around -15 to -25. It was just a few days before Christmas, 2007.

When I moved here, people would ask “What’s it like in Montana?” My answer was, “It so cold here that on my first night I broke three pipe wrenches!”. “WHAT!?” They asked. “Yep, it is so cold here that I broke three pipe wrenches trying to get one more degree of heat out of the furnace!”

If you are wondering, that old phrase, “You will get used to the cold” is not true.

We, my readers and I, have been through a lot since then.

If you have to work in an office, I can’t think of a better view than the one from my desk. Yes, I look up from my computer every chance I get and think how lucky I am… and how lucky I have been for all these years.

One afternoon stands out among all others during my time here.

An older couple stopped by the office around closing time. As soon as I saw them, I knew why they were here. They had been crying.

They asked if I would run an obituary for an adult child who has passed away. I asked these parents for details about their loved one. Through the tears, they gave a few bits of information. Date of birth. Family information.

I asked if their loved one enjoyed sports in school. That was all it took. From then on, all I had to do is ask an occasional question to elicit details.

The couple also had a picture of the deceased. Faded, poor color. A few tweaks with the computer and it would be like new.

I asked them to give me a few minutes. I went to my computer and in about 30 minutes I printed a draft of the obit. It took me a couple of minutes to scan the picture, and a few seconds to restore the color. I printed the photo and the obituary and asked the parents to check the obit.

That’s when the tears really came. They wanted to pay me, but I refused. I didn’t take money for writing the obit (and never have). I would make a lousy (and broke) funeral director.

Then there was the time I went to Fairfield High School to shoot some photos at a game in the gym. One reader came up to me and said, “Thank you for coming.” I replied that it was part of the job, but they next said something that I have never forgotten: “But you’re the publisher.”

I think that someday I might get a tattoo with those words.

I think it was about two years ago when deep down I felt like it was time to move on. I ignored those feelings, but my instinct was correct.

It is time to pass this newspaper on to the next caretaker.

The last time this paper needed a publisher, someone from across the country showed up to take the helm. Now, it’s time for someone closer to the community.

We, our readers, with a little help from me, have continued to serve the community. While I was at the helm, this newspaper celebrated its century of service to the region. Now we’re in our 110th year of service.

We are THE oldest continuously operated business in Fairfield. This paper has continued to serve our area through wars, the Depression, good times and bad. I wasn’t here in 1916, but I know that after that first issue, people would have stopped in to say what a great job our founder, Fred Schoesigel was doing. People still do.

Do people stop by to express a different opinion? You bet. Just recently a gentleman stopped by to complain about our coverage of Montana oil. He expressed his opinion to Savannah, at the front desk. I was sitting at my desk, but he didn’t want to speak to me. I would have told him that news from the oil patch has never prevented a local story from making onto our pages.

But, visits like that are rare.

Don’t pay attention to the slow deaths at the “big” newspapers. I predicted what was coming, and I was spot on. There were a lot of newspaper folk burying their head in the sand. Some thought the decline would strike the small community newspaper.

The small community newspapers are holding their own.

The newspaper where I grew up and the Great Falls Tribune both peaked at around 60,000 readers.

Most people will tell you that papers like the Tribune have many more “online” readers.

They would be wrong.

On the date of the annual circulation report for 2025, the Tribune reported 1,937 print readers. Online readers? 1,108.

My hometown paper, The Jackson Sun, reported 1,550 readers on October 1, 2025. Online subscribers?

306.

For most daily papers, I am seeing a ratio of 3 to 1, sometimes 4 to 1 in favor of the printed word.

Small papers have their ups and downs. You might gain a handful of readers in one month, and the next month you might lose a couple.

I’ve seen publishers at a mid-size daily newspaper panic because the lost one subscriber. One time, I checked when the publisher panicked. The subscriber had passed away a few months earlier.

I’m selling the newspaper as a standalone business. I am selling the building separately. This building has far too much space for a newspaper.  I will also be putting my home up for sale.

What is next for me? I’m heading back to Tennessee. I’m not returning to Jackson, where I grew up. Too big for me. I will be going to Byrdstown, Pickett County, Tennessee. That’s  where my dad was born and raised, and I still have some kin there. I also have a few acres there that has been in the family for generations.

I also own part of the “Three Islands of the Wolf River.” Sound impressive. It isn’t. I think my spot of land is about the same size as the piece of paper the land title is printed on. Of course, that’s only when it’s not under water.

Part of what has brought on this decision is the passing of my sister in November. I never visited her in Connecticut. She loved it there, and I hope to get there late this year for a memorial and visit with her friends there. They have asked for a memorial.

There is a weekly paper in Byrdstown, too. I have fond memories visiting that paper when my dad and I would drive up to Byrdstown on the weekend. Maybe I’ll crank out a few words for them every once in a while. It would be a honor.

Maybe I’ll do a little printing. A publisher in the central part of Tennessee, about 90 minutes from Byrdstown, is planning to establish a newspaper printing facility. Maybe I’ll spend a few days a week lending a hand to get the presses up and running.

As for this newspaper, I hope someone, or a group, will see the continuing need for a local paper in Fairfield. This is, and for as long as it is published, will be the only local newspaper in Fairfield.

No matter where my path leads, I will always cherish my time here, the people I have come to know, and the “Big Sky” I have seen daily since 2008.

I will miss every one of you, but I will take those memories and stories with me and maybe print a few in a Tennessee newspaper.

This is a community-oriented town. With that in mind, let me close with this.

When I was still living in Jackson, Tennessee, my dad, in the late seventies, told me the story of the Daily Journal in Tupelo, Mississippi.

When he passed away, the owner, George McLean, had set it up so that the newspaper would be owned by a non-profit. According to the newspaper’s website, “Since 1979, the Daily Journal has paid millions of dollars in dividends to the non-profit CREATE Foundation, which owns the newspaper.”

Tupelo is a town of about 37,000 people, but a community based non-profit newspaper in Fairfield could gain a lot of interest and support from advertisers and subscribers beyond our town limits.

Just a thought.