Local newspaper celebrates Nebraska Community Newspaper Week

As part of the Nebraska Press Association’s 150th anniversary celebration, Gov. Jim Pillen proclaimed June 26-30 as Nebraska Community Newspaper Week.

The week is being set aside to give Nebraska newspapers a chance to put ourselves into the news for once and showcase just what we do for our communities.

Community newspapers record history as it happens by featuring the names and faces of the people that live and work in our towns here everyday.

“Newspapers are the glue that holds the community together and provides an important historical account of a town,” said Cedar County native and former Nebraska Press Association President Greg Viergutz, whose parents, the late Vance and Dolores, owned first the Coleridge Blade and then the Randolph Times.

“There are other important factors in a town such as a strong school system or bank, but a newspaper’s contribution is unique. No community newsletter or Facebook group can replace its depth of coverage and permanence of record,” Viergutz said.

The Cedar County News has been there to cover the good, the bad and the ugly, but more often the awesome part of small town life for 125 years now.

The News has covered all of the big national events in the past one-and-a-quarter centuries — America’s entry into both World War I and World War II, victory celebrations when the wars concluded, presidential elections, and the Apollo moon landing, just to name a few.

The News has been here to cover all the big local news, too. The celebrations when a new business is opened, or a local team wins a local, regional or state title.

We’ve recorded floods, fires, tornadoes, births and deaths, and anniversaries.

We’ve been there when local teams scored the final point to win state championships in basketball and volleyball. We’ve also been there to share the heartache of reaching a state title game, only to come home without the state championship trophy in tow.

Hartington’s first newspaper rolled off the presses the same year the town was born in 1883. At least six different newspapers called Hartington home over the years. The Cedar County News was one of the last ones to get started, publishing its first issue in 1898.

The community’s strong newspaper tradition has earned Hartington quite a reputation over the years. In fact, the Hartington Cup, a silver, loving cup presented to the best weekly newspaper in the state, was one of the most sought-after honors by Nebraska Press Association members in the 1920s. For years, it stood alongside the Lincoln Cup and the Omaha Cup as the most prestigious honor a Nebraska weekly newspaper could earn each year.

Today, Hartington area residents still recognize the importance of local news coverage, as the Cedar County News celebrates its 125th year of publishing.

Although there are certainly challenges in the industry today, newspapers are far from dead. Besides our weekly print edition, we now publish our local news on an app, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and on three different websites.

We appreciate every advertiser and every reader we have — they make it possible for us to continue telling the community’s story each week.

Cedar County has been lucky to have some outstanding newspaper editors and publishers over the years.

Two former Cedar County News staff members are now in the Nebraska Newspaper Hall of Fame. Former News Editor Cal Stewart, a Belden native, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007. Former News Publisher J.P. O’Furey was inducted into the Hall in 2016. Four Cedar County News publishers — O’Furey, Fred Zimmer, Rob Dump and Peggy Year — have also been elected to guide either the statewide Nebraska Press Association or one of its sister associations, the Nebraska Press Association Advertising Service or Nebraska Press Association Foundation.

This all goes to show that News publishers have taken a lot of pride in their profession, their communities and in their mission to produce quality journalism each week.

Personally, Peggy and I have truly enjoyed our time at the helm of this newspaper and our time guiding these statewide organizations. While it’s meant some 60-70 hour work weeks from time to time, it’s been worth it.

After all, there is nothing better than seeing our communities, and our profession, grow and succeed, and knowing that our community newspapers may have played a small part in those successes.