Halderman recalls paper in 1960s

— The Decatur Herald has seen many changes over the years as technology has altered the way newspapers are produced and printed.

Dorothy Halderman, of Sulphur Springs, worked as a Linotype operator at the Decatur Herald during the 1960s and early 1970s and recalls how the newspaper was run in those days.

Today the paper is laid out on the computer and sent to Springdale for printing. In those days the paper was laid out with machines and printed right in the Decatur Herald office.

Halderman used a Linotype machine to set type in columns. She would press a letter on 90 character keyboard, with separate keys for lower and upper case letters, and molds for a letter form would fall into place. The machine would make oneline of type at a time, Halderman said. If the line ended in the middle of a word, she would hyphenate and go to the next line, she said. The assembled line would be cast as a single piece ofmetal.

After the paper was printed, the editor would melt the cast pieces of metal down to reuse the nextweek. The pieces were made out of lead and they still had the printers ink on them so they smelled terrible when they were melted down, Halderman said.

Halderman worked under owner and editor Howard Harp, and the two ran the whole newspaper by themselves.

“Him and me, we did it all ... He was a good guy, very quiet, but we got along real well,” she said.

Harp moved to Decatur in1964 and bought the paper from the Tuckers, Halderman said. Roy “Pappy” Tucker and his wife Rena bought the paper in 1956 and eventually their son took over the paper, Halderman said.

Harp always told Halderman, the Decatur Herald was the oldest business in town, even at that time,she said.

In addition to operating the Linotype machine, Halderman wrote stories, proofread the paper, answered phone calls and did just about everything else.

“I was in the office all the time. I just did it all and I loved it,” she said.

Halderman’s favorite memory of working at the Decatur Herald was accidentally substituting the wrong word while covering a big house fire. Haldermanwrote that “firemen distinguished the fire” rather than “extinguished the fire.” Her friend Charlie Daves from the Decatur State Bank teased her about the mistake for years, Halderman said with a laugh.

Working at the newspaper came naturally for Halderman. Before working at the Decatur Herald, she did Linotype work for editor Bob Lamberson at the Journal-Advance in Gentry. She was the editor of her school newspaper in high school and the art editor of the school yearbook.

“I automatically have a talent for spelling,” Halderman said. She still proofreads everything she sees, even on television, out ofhabit.

Halderman quit the Decatur Herald in 1973 to remarry and moved to Sulphur Springs. She retired from the Bank of Gravett - another job she dearly loved - after 35 years of service.

News, Pages 2 on 07/28/2010