I’ve been looking through the Rockford Morning Star newspaper articles I wrote when I was a reporter during the 1970s. I clipped and saved all my items by turning the filled notebooks I used during meetings and interviews into scrapbooks. From time to time, I mailed in features including photos about local people doing interesting things. I’m looking for a story I remember and hope it contains the fact I’m seeking to use in my blog.
Another one of my former duties was attending every school board and village board meeting. On those evenings, I phoned in my report before the 10 p.m. deadline so it appeared in the next morning’s edition. Most Durand residents subscribed to the daily. Neighborhood teens were up early riding their bicycles to deliver the paper door-to-door so readers could absorb the news while they drank their morning coffee. Residents knew what their local elected officials were doing as well as neighboring communities. We have lost that comprehensive source of area activities.
All television outlets inundate us with the same national news that’s important at the moment and told in as many ways possible. We may hear about a school board in Florida or Pennsylvania that does something out of the ordinary, but the usual actions of the Durand CUSD 322 board are not publicized.
The school is the heart of small, rural communities. Whether residents have young children or not, everyone is affected by the actions of the trustees in more ways than taxes. The elected officials hire the administrators and teachers to run the schools in accordance with state laws but the board has the final word. Such things as are the teachers satisfied with their pay scale and will it attract good teachers and encourage the ones we have to remain are important to the entire community.
I miss the old Morning Star, which has become the Rockford Register Star and is delivered on-line with the print version arriving in the U.S. mail.
Where do you get your news?