The Wichita Eagle, May 29, 2016
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/article80655992.html
By Kelsey Ryan
It’s hard to describe the power behind The Eagle’s printing press.
Standing in the press room, you can feel the pulse of a three-story machine thumping in your chest – 55,000 papers an hour whizzing past.
The faster it goes, the louder it roars.
Ink is splattered everywhere. Cyan. Magenta. Yellow. Black. Four colors to make all colors. The smell. It’s strong and not for the faint-hearted.
That ink – it’s in the blood of the people who work here.
For most of 144 years, a press has been the heartbeat of The Wichita Eagle.
And since 1872, the crew in the press room have never missed a day.
Busloads of schoolchildren and members of the public have come over the years to watch the presses run, learning that each roll of newsprint weighs a ton, and that the press consumes so much ink it has to arrive by tanker truck.
But The Eagle’s digital audience surpassed its print audience years ago as more people turned to their phones, tablets and computers for news.
Now, The Eagle will no longer print its own paper. That job will be done by our sister paper, the Kansas City Star.
There will still be news. There will still be journalists in Wichita. There will still be a paper.
The Eagle press operators are the invisible heroes who for years have given us “the daily miracle.”
They are a family with their own way of doing things, their own jokes and their own nicknames.
Here are the men who make it work. We’re thankful for them.
‘The Reverend’
Joe Parks, 61, is retiring along with the press. He’s worked in The Eagle’s press room since 1981.
It was sold to him as a job he would have for the rest of his life.
“That was almost true,” he says in his office next to the press room. “I’m just going to ride it on out.”
He started as a “flyman” – doing the grunt work that the press operators didn’t want to do. He served four years as an apprentice before becoming a full-fledged journeyman press operator.
He was here in 2001 when the newspaper installed the current press, which was designed specifically for the building.
“The old presses were louder, required more maintenance and were more hazardous,” he says. “It destroyed your hearing.”
He remembers working with some of the “old-timers” who lost fingers working on those old presses. He almost lost one once.
But he also remembers funny mishaps, like the time about 15 years ago when there was an ink contamination and people in the photos had green skin.
“Everybody looked like they were from ‘Star Trek,’ ” he says.
‘Looney’
Stephen Looney got into printing while in the Air Force. He’s worked at The Eagle since 1998, transferring here after working six years at the Kansas City Star.
He was born and raised in Wichita and came back here so he could take care of his aging parents.
He’s 53 now and not sure what he’s going to do. He’s thought about retraining and doing industrial maintenance.
“I’ll go where the money is,” he says as he cleans under his fingernails with an Exacto knife. “It’s a big question mark.”
Every day, he takes a print edition of The Eagle and fills out the crosswords, ciphers and Sudoku.
“People still want that paper in their hands. They don’t want a computer screen. But that seems to be the way it’s going.”
He’s a photographer in his spare time. And he’ll probably keep coaching League 42 – a youth baseball program named in honor of baseball legend Jackie Robinson.
“Above all things, God will provide,” he says.
‘Boner’
Tom Jarboe, or Boner – a play on his last name – has been working in the printing business since high school.
He started in commercial printing.
“They said, ‘Hey punk, you ain’t no printer until you’ve worked at a newspaper.’ ”
So that’s what he did.
He’s worked at The Eagle for 18 years and serves as the steward for the union. He says the press operators, who are all union workers, received a fair package from the newspaper.
Jarboe, 47, is not sure what he’ll do next. He might learn another trade.
He thinks print newspapers will last across the country until the baby boomers are gone.
“Kids today ain’t going to buy newspapers,” he says. “They read everything on their phones. … Like anything, technology has slowly taken over.”
He’s going to miss the camaraderie of his fellow press operators.
“We’ve built a lot of friendships here. It’s like a family. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day. … We thought we had a bit more time. We knew it was going to happen – we just didn’t know when,” he says.
“The morale ain’t too good, but we’re going to adjust and get the work done in a professional manner until the last day.”
‘Hokey’
Robert Hoch II, 43, is a fifth-generation newspaper man.
His great-great-grandfather, Edward W. Hoch, bought the Marion County Record in 1874 and later served two terms as the 17th governor of Kansas. Hoch’s great-grandfather and his grandfather worked at the Record. His father worked for The Eagle for more than 40 years in the technology department. Hoch has worked for The Eagle since 2004.
When he was 14, Hoch’s father let him try out the press at the Record. He worked in commercial printing before coming to The Eagle.
“I had a blast coming in here. It’s a fun job.”
He’ll miss working with the other guys the most.
“We spend more time with each other than our wives since we’re third-shifters.”
They like to play jokes on each other sometimes. He remembers about a year and a half ago when some of them threw Black Cat firecrackers under Jarboe’s chair.
“Scared the hell out of him.”
He’s just young enough to switch professions, he says, and is considering commercial truck driving or starting an import business.
His hobby is rebuilding Volkswagens. He has a 1970 convertible Beetle that needs a full restoration.
“I always liked to tinker with things.”
He is also membership chairman for the Midian Shriners, which helps raise money for the Shriners Hospitals for Children.
Hoch thinks people will get tired of consuming all information from electronics and will “start yearning for true interaction” again, like they get from reading a print newspaper.
“It’s time. The printing industry is dying, if not dead already. It’s sad to say, but it’s a dying art – a dying trade.”
‘Jonesy’
Ron Jones worked at several places, from a salt plant in Hutchinson to Beech Aircraft, before starting at The Eagle in 1991.
He was a part-time paper handler and later became an apprentice and then a full-time press operator.
In 2005, he left for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but he returned in 2010.
“Pay’s good,” he says.
“It takes a certain type of person to be a pressman.”
What makes a good press operator?
“Someone who learns the work, knows the work, and covers the job,” he says.
Jones, 59, says he now plans to work in construction. He has a contractor’s license. He’s not particularly sad to leave.
“It’s changed so much. It’s not like it used to be. The morale is not bad, but it’s not the same place. … It was a good place to work. I’d rank it pretty high.”
‘Big Country’
This isn’t the first time Tim Fullerton, production manager, has lost a job in printing.
He was working at the Wellington Daily News in the early 1990s when printing was moved to El Dorado.
When he was 11, he ran the presses on weekends and during summers in his dad’s print shop in Wellington.
After leaving the Daily News, he bought his dad’s print shop. He later sold it and came to The Eagle as a pressman in 2001.
“I was 40. I needed to do something, and they had an ad in the paper for pressmen up here.”
Now, he’ll start again at 55.
“I’m going to dust off my resume and try to get a managing job at a manufacturing plant,” he says.
At The Eagle, Fullerton worked his way up to maintenance supervisor and later production manager, a position he’s held for eight years.
The Eagle’s Flexo press is obsolete and one of the only ones left of its kind in the country, Fullerton says. That has made it expensive to operate and maintain.
Flexo differs from traditional offset printing because the ink acts more like a dye. The Eagle’s Flexo doesn’t smudge like other papers. It will likely be scrapped now.
“You can compare it to watercolors. … You get all four of the colors, and you keep certain densities and darkness. It’s a dye. You get raw ink and add in water or more raw ink to get your balance. We’re unique. It has a honeycomb roller filled with ink that’s then squeegeed off to get a perfect amount.”
One of Fullerton’s most memorable experiences with this press? When a pipe burst overhead, covering him in yellow ink.
“The guys called me Big Bird,” he says. “I shut the ink off and just headed to the shower. Those things happen.”
‘Stiffy’
Adam “Stiffy” Stafford is a third-generation Eagle employee.
He recently finished his apprenticeship as a press operator.
In 2005, he started as a paper handler and wanted to learn a challenging trade. So he started the apprenticeship in 2014.
The other guys say he would have made an excellent journeyman press operator.
Now, he’s not sure what’s next. He’s thinking of using his forklift skills to work in a warehouse. It’s been a good learning experience, he says.
Stafford, 32, grew up around The Eagle. His father worked in the circulation department for about 30 years. His grandfather worked in circulation for almost 20 years.
He remembers how loud the presses were when he was a kid.
“It’s a job where everyone knows where you work,” he says. “I grew up hearing it was a good place to work, that it was family-oriented.”
He’s proud that the press operators have never missed a day.
“We always put out the paper. … We all work really hard to get the paper out to customers. … We’re here every day – holidays. Lot of missed birthdays and Christmases. Kids understand as best they can.
“It’s sad to see The Eagle no longer being printed here. Since I’ve been alive, it’s been printed here, and there’s the talk of selling the building.”
‘Texas’
When press operators in Orange, Texas, went on a wildcat strike around 1984, it was the start of a career in newspaper printing for Allen Ennis.
Ennis started in the mailroom at the Orange Leader, but the press operators wanted more help.
“It was part-time work and I had a child that liked to eat every day,” he says.
He eventually worked his way up to journeyman press operator.
“I can count to eight real good,” he says as he holds up his hands, showing two missing fingertips on his right hand. He’d been on the job three years in Texas when he slipped and his hands went into the press.
He also shows a blackish streak on that hand where the ink got under the skin.
“It’s in my blood.”
He later worked at the Houston Post for about five years until it closed in 1995. Then he came to The Eagle.
“The work’s interesting and I’m good at it. The pay’s not bad, and I’ve still got kids at home who like to eat every day.” He now plans to work as a tow truck driver.
Ennis was here when The Eagle installed the current press in 2001. He remembers sometimes working more than 30 hours straight to get the new presses up and running.
“We call her a she. It’s a she. Because she’s very temperamental and always changing her mind,” Ennis says of the press.
“If she thinks you’re having too good of a night or too good of a time, she’s like a mean wife. She’ll shut you down. Most pressmen call it a she. Even the female pressmen we’ve had here call it a she.”
In the past, press operators have also stayed for days on end at The Eagle during snowstorms.
“We’ve never left until it’s done,” Ennis says.
“It’s good to know that we see (the news) first while everyone else sleeps. I’ve always taken it for granted.”