Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/222183
Division 1 Best General Commentary/Category 4 First place Kathy Tretter Ferdinand News Comments: Conveys both sense of community and pathos about longtime editor. Good writing. Second place Clayton Doty The Benton Review (Fowler) Comments: Solid, if unspectacular opinion, clearly expressed. Third place Cheryl Patrick The Leader (Knox) Comments: Light and clever. Best Editorial Writer/Category 5 No awards given. Best Business/Economic News Coverage/ Category 6 First place Building a healthy hive Lisa Hoppenjans Ferdinand News Comments: Love this story. This one could have been a simple "little kids do well" thing or even a cutline and caption, but the writer really delved into things and brought the story home. It also helps that it's cute little kids. Second place Dalls honored among other elite Hoosier families with Sesquicentennial Award Kathy Tretter Ferdinand News Comments: Great story as it delves into the history and the "why" of this farm and its longevity. Good piece of writing by a writer who seemed to be interested in the subject. Third place Puzzles restaurant now open for business Amanda Matlock The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: Love the lede on this, and the story itself is a pretty good one. Not your typical "Grand Opening" story. Page 14 Local legend dead at 91 By Kathy Tretter Ferdinand News J. Roy Haake would forgive us and might himself have uttered one of those oaths last week that used to cause his mother to bang on the floor of her apartment. Phoebe Mae Haake did not tolerate any cursing. The widowed mother of seven lived in an apartment above the Ferdinand News office where two of her sons worked, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning to finish the newspaper by deadline. She told sons J. Roy and Oscar to put a nickel in a jar any time she heard a word she did not approve of. They used the money in the jar to buy an office refrigerator – still in use to this day. So, when Roy passed away last week after deadline, we knew he would understand if we uttered a few "damns" of our own. No one knows better the life of a community journalist than the man who spent 45 years behind the desk I now occupy, many of Roy's files still tucked into the righthand drawer. The scope of his work is amazing considering the fact he never wanted to be in the newspaper business in the first place. Yet, if you cut him he would bleed ink. It got in his bones and in his heart. J. Roy Haake was the epitome of a 20th century journalist. His father, Henry Haake, answered a newspaper ad for a pressman in 1906 for a brand new newspaper headquartered in Ferdinand that was started by the Commerce Club. When the community found dissatisfaction with the first editor after just two months, Henry took over the newspaper, eventually purchasing it in 1909 and staying at its helm until his death. His sons, J. Roy and Oscar, took over after they returned from military service in 1945. They bought the paper outright on January 1, 1946 and continued until their retirement on August 1 of 1990. Oscar was the "quiet" one, handling bookkeeping, mechanical operations and photography while Roy, who badly wanted to become an aviator and had been attending St. Louis School of Aeronautics until World War II broke out, was in charge of editorial content and ad sales. He made friends in two counties during his weekly trips to collect advertising, peppered with the occasional stop at local drinking establishments, maybe for an ad and sometimes for a bit of libation. Roy's first taste of what would become his unintended career came when he was in grade school. He was in charge of feeding paper into the press, perched on boxes placed atop a chair because he was too tiny to reach the paper feed. Oscar, who was five years his senior, would catch the papers as they came out and fold them for delivery. Roy started a humor column which has surely been the most popular feature of this newspaper during its 106 year history – Around Town with B.Spreader – the B. standing for bull you-know-what. Roy's humor and personality shined through his columns, written in a cross between country bumpkin English with a little low German thrown in for good measure. For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on "Contests." Building a healthy hive By Lisa Hoppenjans Ferdinand News Last year, Harrison McCoy, then 6 years old, came home from kindergarten with a concern – the shortage of honey bees. Bees, he learned, are an essential part of the ecosystem, acting as pollinators for crops, fruit trees and flowers. "We need to get bees," he insisted. "We need to do our part." A year and a half later, the seven year-old apiarist sold his first crop of honey – three and a half gallons – at the Jasper Farmers' Market. Also for sale were blueberries from the 110 bushes Harrison and his sister, Katie, 5 (five and a half, she insists – can't forget that half), helped plant about the same time they got the bees. The children picked and packaged the sweet berries to be sold. Mom and Dad, Robin Brooks and Jason McCoy, sold vegetables from their lush Martin County garden. The children outlined their business plan. One-half of their earnings goes into long- term savings. One-half of the remaining half, or one-quarter of their proceeds, is reinvested into their business. The remaining one-fourth is their spending money. Harrison now knows how many half-pints are in a gallon and how to market his honey. The larger the amount a customer purchases, the less he or she is charged per half-pint. Harrison now has four very healthy hives, which he largely cares for himself, with a little help from Dad. They are so healthy, in fact, that one of his hives swarmed earlier this year. "It was Memorial Day weekend," relates Mom, Robin. "It looked like an animal carcass hanging in our pear tree. But Harrison knew exactly what to do." The family woke to see a huge mass of bees – an estimated 60,000 bees – hanging in a tree, just a few yards from the hive. Harrison quickly donned his white canvas suit, veil, gloves and boots. Dad moved a new brood box under the swarm, and Harrison shinnied up the tree and cut the branch. The swarm, along with its queen, dropped neatly into the new brood box. They added a couple supers and a cover and voila! A brand new hive. How did he know he captured the queen? "She's bigger, she has a white dot on her back and she's surrounded by other bees," Harrison explains. Although he wears a beekeeper's protective gear, he really isn't afraid of his bees. In fact, he once slept all the way home from the Walter T. Kelley Company in Clarkstown, Ky. – about a three hour ride – with a box of bees in his lap. The Kelley Company is a well-known name among beekeepers and is where the McCoys purchased most of their initial equipment. This summer, Harrison spends many lazy afternoons working on "supers," which hold frames of artificial honeycomb made from recycled beeswax. The supers are placed atop the larger brood boxes, in which For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on "Contests."