A little tin press

A question you hear a lot when you’re a child is, “What do you want be when you grow up?”

For me, the choice was self-evident. I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. When I was about 10 or 11, I bought a toy press from a store in my hometown that sold gifts, cards and toys.

The printing press was made of tin and had little rubber type that you could put on a wheel and turn it to make an impression on a piece of paper. It was time consuming work and based on technology that even in the 1970s was out of date. However, that little press did what it was intended to do – it sparked my imagination.

By the time I was a freshman in high school, I was writing up sports stories about our high school teams for our hometown newspaper, the Roundup Record-Tribune. My senior year in high school, I was the editor of our school newspaper and had chosen the University of Montana as my college because they offered degrees in journalism.

A high school guidance counselor encouraged me to start college during the summer after my graduation. He pointed out that my high school had less than 200 students but the University would have about 8,000 students. He didn’t want me to have culture shock and drop out, so suggested that I attend summer classes – mostly with teachers who were coming back for continuing education courses – and I would be better prepared for classes in the fall.

This was a grand idea. Missoula, Montana, in the summer is a treasure trove of activities and I soon was involved in many of them including a Sunday morning softball game on campus. It turned out many of the players would later be my professors, so it was a good way to meet them.

After my freshmen year, I again went to college in the summer, which allowed me to graduate from journalism school in three years.

My first job after college was as a reporter in Beach, North Dakota. I soon discovered that a month actually working for a newspaper taught me more than college did in three years. I was covering city government, writing engagement announcements and even taking pictures of automobiles for newspaper advertising. The one thing I wasn’t doing was writing sports. So after six months, I decided to quit, go live with my parents and search for a job as a sports reporter.

My goal was to work for the Billings Gazette. But alas, after a two-month search, I landed a job in Alliance, Nebraska, writing sports. This was a short-lived job. After two-days, I quit. I found that the publisher had lied to me about my wages and benefits package so I re-packed everything I owned into my car and drove back to Roundup to live with my parents again.

A month later, I got a call from a newspaper publisher in Baker, Montana, who wanted me to be the editor of his newspaper. The editor of the newspaper in Roundup had put a good word in for me, which resulted in this job offer.

I snapped it up and moved to Baker, a town about the size of Roundup and one that had many of the same interests and both revolved around the oil exploration and production businesses. Still I wasn’t writing sports, but I found living in Baker very comfortable. There were lots of young people because of the oil boom and I liked to party with all of them.

Two years later, I was offered a job with Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive. This marked a big change in my career because I left newspapers and moved into public relations. However, reflecting on the change, I really didn’t realize it at the time. I actually applied for the job in the first place because I thought it might bring some opportunities for my Baker newspaper to do some printing jobs for the cooperative.

Luck was smiling on me, because my neighbor in Baker worked for the telephone cooperative. And while my neighbor had a reputation for hating everyone, he liked me. That was partly because I was a part-time bartender in Baker at his favorite watering hole - the Windjammer.

After three years in Glendive, I found myself married to a gal who played on the same volleyball team as me. One day I told her that if MDU had a job opening in their communications department, I would apply. Even if it meant moving back to North Dakota. I had met a lot of MDU employees both in Baker and Glendive and I liked them all.

Well, that weekend in the newspaper, there was a job opening at MDU and I applied. I was one of about 90 applicants. A fellow by the name of Jon Metropoulos came to Glendive to do a first job interview. As luck would have it, I went to college with his son who also attended journalism school. I must have misunderstood Jon because somehow I though there was only three people who had applied for the job. Well, this gave me a lot of confidence as I thought I had to be better than the other two. Perhaps, Jon was telling me that they would narrow the field down to three and interview those three in Bismarck.

A week or so later I got a call asking if Belinda and I would come to Bismarck for a second interview. So we stayed in the Kirkwood Motor Inn, had our interview, had a nice dinner on MDU and I thought if nothing else, it had been a nice weekend. About a week later I was offered the job. I started in December 1985 as the editor of the utility’s employee magazine.

A lot of changes occurred in the ensuing 16 years and by 2001, MDU was no longer simply a regional utility and I was no longer the editor of the employee magazine. I had been promoted a couple of times and was working as manager of the corporate communications department. Until I wasn’t. I had been downsized. So in February of 2002, I took a job as a reporter for the Bismarck Tribune writing education stories.

This job lasted until September. However, being a reporter again was a shock to my system. The biggest shock was the cut in pay. I was making less than half of what my salary had been.

In October 2002, I went to work for the Lignite Energy Council, where I continue to work today as the vice president of communications.

My wife and I have lived in Mandan for 25 years and we’ve been married for 25 years. We’re the parents of two adult sons and life has been good for us. And to think it all began with a little tin press that I bought at Annie’s Gift Store in Roundup.