Stop the Presses!
Newspaper stops printing after more than 30 years
Stop the presses!
After 31 years of working at The Crittenden Press, the chilly winter day a small red button was pushed to hastily shut down three clattering press units stands out as one of the most memorable of Faye Conger's career. It was Feb. 18, 1998, the day an Air Force bomber crashed on Eddie Hendrix's farm near the Mattoon community.
"We had run about half the Presses and they came back here yelling, 'Stop the press!'," said Conger.
Conger and the rest of the newspaper's crew working to get the news on the streets and in mailboxes were as stunned as anyone that day, but word of the crash meant, for them, starting over in order to include the late-breaking news in an unprecedented second edition of The Press. It turned out to
be a long night, and was the first time in memory – before or since – that the old printer's cliché actually put a halt to the ink at The Crittenden Press.
Press moves printing
On Wednesday, the ink stopped for good in the production room of The Press. There was no red button pushed, no special edition and little fanfare... just a few teary eyes and a cloud of nostalgia lingering as the final issue of The Crittenden Press to be printed in Marion was readied for its readers.
"I'll probably shed a few tears," Conger said last week, preparing others for her last day on the job. "You work at a place 31 years, it's hard."
Conger, 62, has been with the newspaper longer than anyone else, showing up each week since August of 1977 to methodically collate advertising flyers and sections of the paper for distribution. She remained until the last one rolled off line this week, almost 31 years to the day she started.
For most of that period, she has worked alongside a man who has become like a brother.
"I remember when he came here," said Conger, chuckling as she recalled how quiet Ken Sharp was at the time he was hired. "I thought he was a bashful, but he grows on you. He's my friend."
Over a couple of decades of working together, the two have shared ideals, both religious and political. In fact, for a period, Sharp willingly allowed Conger to subject him to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, while both enjoyed gospel music and preaching over the airwaves.
In Sharp's 21 years as pressman for the newspaper, he has monitored ink wells, threaded newsprint and sometimes coaxed a miracle or two out of the aging units that have produced The Crittenden Press and The Early Bird. Altogether, he's printed about 14.2 million newspapers, not including school papers, fair catalogs and the occasional assistance to neighboring community newspapers.
"I've probably printed three times that," said Sharp, who after graduating from Livingston Central High School began as a pressman at The Shoppers' News in Paducah, printing several community newspapers, including The Crittenden Press. "I've killed a lot of trees."
He printed his last newspaper Wednesday, as The Press transitions to a more cost-effective plan that will see its publications printed in Elkton, Ky., with full-color capabilities.
"I wasn't sure I could be around to see the press' gears make their last turn," said Allison Mick-Evans, daughter of the late Paul Mick, who ran the newspaper from the mid-1960s until his death in 1990. "This change marks the end of something very unique in Kentucky, especially in western Kentucky, and the hardest part about losing the local printing operation is losing several very good people from our Press family."

Life after The Press
Sharp, Conger and Carolyn Cannon are three regulars who will be forced to move on after the presses stop running in Marion, though Sharp is the only full-time employee. Other affected employees who have helped from time to time are Peggy Easley, Missy Myers and Phyllis Risner.
Conger will keep her eyes open for another part-time job that might strike her interest while she updates her Web site with family photos and builds her scrapbook collection. Cannon, who has worked alongside her daughter Gina Brown the last three years, won't be looking to replace her hours, instead preferring to call it quits.
"I mainly came up here to spend more time with Gina," Cannon said of her reasons for starting work at The Press.
Sharp, however, is uncertain of his future. He has for some time contemplated getting out of the printing business, which requires long hours of standing on concrete, heavy lifting and often dangerous situations. In more than a quarter-century in the industry, he's had only one serious injury – a finger smashed between two rollers on a press unit just a couple of years ago. But three back surgeries and other recurring health problems have taken their toll.
"I don't know why I even got into printing," Sharp, 59, contemplated as he eyes an end to a career that started in 1968. "I fell into it and just stayed in it."
He left printing in 1971 to work for Illinois Gulf Central Railroad in Paducah, where he stayed until his first back surgery in 1979. Trying his hat at a few other stops, he returned to printing in the area when Mick came calling in 1987. Mick remembered Sharp from nearly two decades earlier when he printed The Press in Paducah.
"He called me at home," recalled Sharp, who lived in the Marshall County community of Sharpe at the time. "I don't even know how he got my number."
Conger's career also started while Mick was publisher, but she came looking for some spending money outside of being a homemaker and mother of two young children. She answered a tiny ad in the classified section seeking people to "stuff newspapers" every other Monday for four hours. That wasn't even for The Press, but a shoppers guide out of Illinois printed locally. However, with the advent of The Early Bird, Conger soon became a fixture two or three days a week.
"I never dreamed I'd be working up here 31 years," she said.
Like Cannon, she's had the opportunity to work with her daughter collating newspapers. Myers has joined a crew of dozens over the years who have stood alongside Conger dragging circulars across one another and into a newspaper. But no one will ever eclipse the number of insertions Conger has made.
"It's up in the millions, I'm sure," Conger figures. In fact, on some Mondays alone, there have been as many as 40,000 pieces inserted into The Early Bird.
Conger started in 1977 with Donna Hearell and the two worked several years together before Hearell moved on. Along with Hearell and Cannon, Nellie Kirk spent one of the longest periods helping Conger get the newspaper on the streets.

Co-workers like family
Conger said working at The Press, at times, has been like family. She has watched her own children grow up in the three decades she has scrubbed newspaper ink from her hands, and has seen many people come and go through the doors of The Press.
She recalls the early 1990s as the most difficult period for her work family. During the span of three years, Mick was murdered; her mentor, Jim Smith, died; and the man who hired her, John Lucas, left the newspaper.
"It was a pretty emotional time," she said.
Sharp was also an employee during that period, and remembers the death of Smith, the man Conger says took her "under his wing," as particularly difficult.
"Jim was not too far from retirement," Sharp said, only three years from his own retirement eligibility. "Boy, he was looking forward to retirement."
While many of the faces the have worked with have changed, the job for the two longtime Press employees has not. Conger's job of catching newspapers as they run off the press and stuffing publications has been as steady as her catchphrases. For Sharp, spreading ink and adjusting dozens of knobs and levers has become second nature.
Sharp, who has also seen his family grow up during his time at The Press, hasn't spent time thinking about what he will miss. But he says he won't long for the ink-stained hands that come clean only with a harsh bath in Clorox bleach. Nor will he miss taking his work home.
"No more ink on the carpet at the house," said Sharp, who now lives in Marion. "No more ink on the truck seat."
Conger, however, will miss being one of the first to be in the know each week.
"I'm gonna miss getting the news as quick as I do on Wednesday," she said.
But more importantly, Conger and Sharp will both be missed by their fellow employees as the switch to off-site printing begins.
"Ken thinks he doesn't have any friends, but he does," Brown said. "They're all right here."
The Crittenden Press on Monday honored its longtime employees and others working in production with a noontime meal, similar to the many birthday meals organized over the years by Conger and Cannon.
(Editor's note: Next week, The Press begins off-site printing at Quality Web Press in Elkton, though the only difference readers will notice is full-color photos and eventually a sleeker, more modern design.)

Readers, advertisers benefit from change
Starting in September, The Crittenden Press will launch a major new initiative that will bring full-color options to the newspaper and a greater emphasis on serving an ever-changing market.
The Crittenden Press has been beefing up its Internet site over the summer, increasing content and providing more services for advertisers. That focus will continue while the print edition shifts to a more modern appearance, too.
For more than 30 years, The Crittenden Press has been printed in black and white at the newspaper's office on East Bellville Street.
Now, in order to provide readers with color photographs, graphics and full-color advertising options, The Press will be printed elsewhere, said Publisher Chris Evans. The new look will also include a sleeker design that has become the industry standard. Many of the impending changes will take effect next week, others will be implemented by Oct. 1.
Beginning next week, The Press and its sister publication, The Early Bird Shopper's Guide, will be printed in Elkton in Todd County by Quality Web Printing. All of the pre-press services, such as reporting, advertising sales, layout, design and photography, will continue to be handled in Marion. However, the printing and post-press services, such as labeling and inserting of advertising circulars, will be conducted in Elkton.
"In this technological era, it has become more cost-effective and more attractive to outsource our printing," said Evans, who has been with the newspaper for most of the last 22 years. "This has been a very difficult decision because it means turning loose of something we've done for a very long time, and that's printing our own newspaper right here in Marion.
"We were able to continue printing our own newspaper after others in the region quit many years ago. We were able to do that because of a dedicated and highly dependable staff that worked hard to keep production costs low," Evans added.
For many years, The Press was printed by The Shoppers’ News in Paducah. But in the mid-1970s, the late Press publisher Paul Mick purchased the three-unit Goss Community Press which has been used to print the newspaper and shopper's guide in Marion. It ran for the last time on Wednesday to print this week's Crittenden Press.

The end of an era
"It is the end of an era, as we cease to belong to a unique and small league of community-owned newspapers that still print their own newspaper," said Mick's daughter, Allison Mick-Evans. "We have been blessed with very loyal employees in our pressroom, and losing them is the hardest part of this transition."
The Crittenden Press was one of 13 of Kentucky's 121 weekly newspapers that still printed its own newspaper in-house. According to Kentucky Press Association President David Thompson, the only remaining weekly newspaper to print solely its own publication will now be The Harrodsburg Herald in Mercer County. The remaining 11 weeklies print several other publications at their printing plants.
The Press and Early Bird will still be composed in Marion and then uploaded to the Internet where Quality Web Printing will retrieve it in an electronic format, print the newspaper and shopper's guide, then deliver it to Marion on normal publication dates.
The Press will continue to be available at newsstands Wednesday afternoon and delivered by mail on Thursdays in the immediate area. Out-of-town subscribers will not see any difference in delivery either. The Early Bird will be available at most newsstands Monday afternoon and will be in mailboxes on Tuesday and Wednesday in the six-county area it serves.

More changes in store
The newspaper office in Marion will be changing its general business hours. Beginning on Monday, Sept. 8, The Press office will be open from 9 a.m., until 5 p.m. Most after-hours transactions can be done over the Internet, including placing advertising, subscribing and e-mailing of photographs, news and calendar items. Corresponding with reporters or advertising representatives has also been much easier thanks to the Internet and e-mail. Also, for customer convenience, The Press has a secure drop box next to its front door.
With the changes will come an increase in rack and subscription prices. Starting with the Sept. 4 issue of The Crittenden Press the newsstand price will be 94 cents. Kentucky sales tax will be six cents, bringing the total cost to $1.
Newspaper subscriptions rates are going up due to increases in periodical postage. The in-county rate will see only a modest jump to $32. That rate is good for Crittenden and all bordering counties. Elsewhere in Kentucky, the rate will be $40 and out-of-state subscriptions are going to $55. You can subscribe online at The-Press.com using a credit card on a secure Paypal account.
As an alternative to higher out-of-state rates, The Press is going to be offering online PDF subscriptions for less than half the normal subscriber rate. PDFs are full electronic versions of the newspaper which will be accessible through The Press Online. Those PDFs will be available each Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday morning at the latest during holiday periods. Through September, PDFs will be free online. Starting in October, there will be a nominal monthly fee to access those files.
In the past, The Press Online has featured only a portion of the overall content of the newspaper in PDF format. Beginning next week, the entire paper will be posted online.
The main section of The Press Online will continue to feature an abbreviated version of the newspaper in HTML format. That service will continue to be free. The online edition also features Web exclusives such as video, audio, Podcasts and breaking news and sports on the blog link. Breaking news is updated daily as things occur in the community.
The Crittenden Press will continue offering commercial printing, including letterheads, envelopes, business cards, brochures and other types of business forms. The Press offers a variety of new full-color lines, including invitations, posters, brochures and more. Low volume black-and-white printing will continue to be done in Marion. Quick copies and short-run items, including business cards and handbills, will be printed here, but high-quantity commercial jobs will be outsourced to other printers. The Press will continue servicing all of its customers' printing needs.

Guilty plea agreed to in Damron trial
Ronnie Damron, the man set for a third trial this week on sodomy, theft and persistent felony charges, has reached a plea agreement with the state.
Damron, 46, has pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary. The prosecution has agreed to a 10-year sentence. Formal sentencing will be Sept. 11 before Judge Renee Williams in Crittenden Circuit Court.
A third trial was set to start Thursday (today) in Dixon, where the case had been moved due to publicity in The Crittenden Press following two previous trials. Damron has twice been tried for the Oct. 30, 2002, burglary and sexual assault of an elderly woman in the Deer Creek community. The first trial in 2006 ended in a mistrial because the jury failed to render a verdict. Damron was convicted in the second trial in 2007. However, that jury's decision was overturned due to an issue in the jury selection process.
The victim, who was 64 at the time of the incident, has twice testified in court that she knew Damron and that he was the man who shined a flashlight in her face, robbed and assaulted her on her own bed. Commonwealth Attorney Zac Greenwell said the victim has approved the plea agreement.
Damron was the Kentucky State Police's only suspect throughout the investigation. He claims that he was in another county at the time.
Greenwell said the state agreed to the plea with a key provision that Damron will be classified as a violent offender, meaning he will have to serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole. Damron will get credit for time served while awaiting trial, which has been about three years. Based on the plea agreement, he will have to serve just over five more years before being parole eligible.

City further lowers taxes on property
The City of Marion on Monday gave final approval to property tax rates for 2008, lowering the levy on real estate within the city another 2.5 percent from the rate introduced just a week before.
Council members set the 2008 tax on real property at 21.8 cents per $100 of assessed value, a full 10 percent lower than last year’s rate. Last week, council members introduced a property tax ordinance that set the rate at 22.4 cents, which was in error according to City Administrator Mark Bryant. Monday’s adjustment dropped the tariff 2.4 cents lower than the 2007 rate of 24.2 cents.
“It’s what we had originally talked about,” Mayor Mickey Alexander said of the 10-percent reduction to the real estate tax.
Bryant said the city was able to lower one of its primary sources of revenue because over the past several years, the city has exceeded its receipt expectations. The windfall has allowed the general fund and general fund investments to grow considerably – $95,000 in the last fiscal year alone, he explained.
“We obviously manage our budget and finances well and feel confident in our ability to do so in the future,” Bryant said. “There is enough growth annually in property assessments, whether due to new construction/improvements or revaluations, that the tax cut will not place a foreseeable undue burden on the city’s coffers.”
Another motivating factor for the reduction in the primary property tax rate was to give taxpayers a break as household and business costs continue to rise amid a sluggish economy, he explained.
All other tax rates introduced initially by the city remain unchanged, including a 0.7-cent increase in the personal property levy to 28 cents per $100. Motor vehicles and watercraft will be taxed at 22.9 cents per $100 and public utilities at 22.4 cents.
The city’s tax bills should be mailed to property owners within the next couple of weeks.
Meantime, the county’s other taxing districts have set or introduced their 2008 tax rates. All county, library and health district rates will remain unchanged, while the Extension service is asking for a 0.2-cent bump in its collection from real estate.
The board of education will hold a forum Thursday (today) to hear comments on its planned increase to real and personal property tax rates. The school district is looking to increase revenue by as much at $180,000 by moving rates from 41.4 cents per $100 to 42.7 cents.
The public hearing will begin at 5:45 p.m., just prior to the regular monthly meeting.
While some property owners may feel overtaxed, Kentucky’s average state and local tax burden is ranked in the middle of the pack among the nation’s 50 states.
According to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group, Kentucky’s tax burden is ranked 25th nationally, with taxpayers shelling out 9.4 percent of their 2008 earnings to state and local governments. The national average is 9.7 percent.
Started in 1937 amid an explosion in federal spending and IRS collections during the Great Depression, the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation has been tracking the nation’s tax system for seven decades.
In comparing Kentucky’s current tax burden to 30 years ago, Tax Foundation data show the strain on the taxpayer has dropped considerably. In 1977, the average Kentuckian was paying a full 10 percent of their $6,212 per capita income to state and local government. That ranked 26th in the nation.
Kentucky taxpayers now pay $3,243 per capita in state and local taxes, but earn an average of $32,250.
Over the last three decades, the state has ranked as high as 10th in tax collections in 1991 – 10.4 percent of a person’s income – to as low as 31st in 1983 – 9.2 percent.
The Tax Foundation can be found online at www.taxfoundation.org.