This special edition commemorates and marks the progress and achievements made during the past.  Not only does it mark the progress of the Odebolt Chronicle but of every business firm, professional man, religious, civic, fraternal and military organization in the community.  It is gratifying to pause and look back into the past and note our successes and failures; but it is not intended that this memorial edition should serve as a monument and mark the end of endeavors.  We are not to stop here, but set our sights higher and aim for greater accomplishments, and achievements in the future pathway of progress.

True, we have a glorious past of which we are all justly proud.  But we realize that it is today and tomorrow that counts, not yesterday.  In the days, weeks, months and years that lie ahead we will build our lives, our prosperity and our glorious future with the stairway-stones of greater ambition, and on them we will, step by step, mount to a greater life.

Our achievements of the past are insignificant in comparison to the great things which we, by working together, will accomplish in the future.  We say that, because we make no small plans.  They have no magic to stir men’s blood.  We aim high in hope and work, remembering that such aims never die.  As time goes by, we, for ourselves, and for every one in Odebolt, rededicate ourselves to a noble work with the assurance that it will assert itself with ever growing insistency. - Paul Wagner, Publisher

Editor’s note:  H. B. Hook, editor of the Chronicle from June, 1933, to November, 1935, writes the following in response to our request for a contribution to our “New Home” edition.  Hook now presides over a staff of nearly 200 as publisher of the daily and Sunday Morning Democrat at Davenport, a far cry (in his handsome carpeted office with private plumbing) from apprenticeship days on the Chronicle, as he puts it, but he credits Odebolt generously with giving him the right start.  Meanwhile, Hook served with the Spencer newspapers, with the Mason City Globe-Gazette and its radio station, with the 82nd Airborne division during the war in Europe, as manager of KGLO at Mason City, and since early 1952 in Davenport and the Quad-Cities.

Those of us who were privileged to have the Odebolt Chronicle serve as our “teething ring” for journalistic pursuit are rejoicing today with the Chronicle readers and staff in the opening of the newspaper’s new home on Odebolt’s main drag.

Any newspaper worth its salt is constantly boosting the business interests of its community, and as such, it is only proper that its headquarters should be on main street.  (It should be a consolation, anyway, to escape from the adjacency of the Larson-Purdy plumbing shop with its “rough” element, traded-in toilets and smelly old goose-necks.)

This new Chronicle home is something I must see—if at all possible during the gala opening.  Can it be that in the new setup the “slaves” won’t have to stoop in a low-timbered basement to hoist up paper stock?  That the press won’t have to be babied with gum and paling wire?  That there will be enough light to distinguish between the ad illustrations for Kalin’s grapefruit and Larson’s brassieres?  And that there will be enough heat in the front office so that it won’t be necessary for single guys to establish evening headquarters in girl friends’ warm homes in order to get thawed out in time for the next day’s grind?

Oh, it was rough on the Chronicle 20 years ago (gad, how time flies—as witness my 6 foot, 2 inch eldest son who has popped up in the meantime) but it was wonderful. * * *

1933—ah, those good old depression days!  No cold or hot wars going on; no A or H bombs; no income taxes for us poor peons; no minimum wage law; no Taft-Hartley; no 40-hour week; no TV; no traffic jams; no panty raids; no chlorophyll and no B. O. antidotes.

How did we live?  Today’s jive set talks about “living it up.”  They should know something about the solid living we had in Odebolt in 1933, 34 and 35, and they might rightfully be jealous.  Those softball teams developed by Frank Mattes and “Coonie” Rex, with Old Man Ralph Swanson (retired) and myself at the mike of the P.A. system; the lighted grounds promoted by the merchants, with then Congressman Guy Gillette pitching the opening inning; the commercial Club fall carnivals and auto raffles, with Ira Martin, Fred Einspahr, Al Krusenstjerna, and Carl Hansen hawking the tickets until they were hoarse; peddling stock for a new bank after the First National gave me a “quitting business” ad; entertaining politicians and members of the highway commission in order to get paved roads east and west of town; joining the “family night” at the Odebolt golf club, with some gracious folks always having enough extra potato salad and chocolate cake in their basket to feed this starved singleton; Oscar Larson stepping out of the post office into the insurance business, and giving me my first lesson in security by hooking me on to a 20-year policy which has only one more premium to go (Thanks, Pal); the heavy drinking (buttermilk ) that A. R. Peterson and I indulged in; the long hours that Lloyd Watts kept his drug emporium open, as we all helped him on his way to his first million; the fatherly guidance and encouragement from my one sustaining and loveable connection with Odebolt through the years—Don G. Mullan; singing in church parlors, at funerals and in Frank Mattes’ Easter cantata, accompanied by orchestra—a production worthy of big cities; cheering Supt. A. W. Coon’s Odebolt teams; arranging the cheese and ice cubes for Nate Skalovsky’s bridge quartet; skunking Merle Sanders over the billiard tables at the Masonic club rooms; that memorable night when I was finally indoctrinated within those walls; the picnics, church suppers and country dinners amongst the sort of genuine friends than which there are none whicher; the night my nose turned me back—almost a block away—from my first attempt at a lutefisk supper, and the maidens fair who suffered under my clumsy feet while dancing at Lake Blackhawk.

Theme of your open house, I understand, is “A Progressive Newspaper Boosting a Progressive Community,” the slogan which Hook hooked on the Chronicle back in 1933. * * *

Hook left, but the slogan remained.  Some guys leave various things behind:  debts, bad checks, jealous husbands, broken homes, etc., but it seems that all I ran away from was a slogan.  (Maybe I wasn’t progressive enough to live with it.)

It’s a good slogan because it fits—both newspaper and community.  It was conceived while the Chronicle and the community were plugging to have No. 175 paved east and west (Remember that hazardous white gravel dust?); boosting corn-hog programs; farm night schools, with businessmen furnishing coffee and cakes; town-wide merchandising events; and active Commercial Club, etc.  (It seems to me that we also swung a state liquor store into Odebolt in those years, although some may doubt the “progressive” aspect of such a project.)

Another slogan idea, I remember, that I toyed with for the Chronicle was:  “Keep Things Popping in the Pop Corn Center of the World”.  (That wouldn’t do because there were a few tough kernels in the pot that wouldn’t pop, including myself.)

* * *

That brings me to my provocative column of those days:  “Bites from the ‘line’ of H. B. Hook.”  I strained so much to be humorous that I practically blew my packing, and a few times unintentionally offended some dear reader.  (Paul Wagner—bless his type-lice—shielded me from a “sure death” invitation to the alley one night.)

By and large, however, Odeboltians were charitable with this upstart, fresh from the University of Iowa’s halls of journalism, and they will always be remembered for their cooperation and encouragement.  Anyone who could sell ads to Alf Meyer (now a leading citizen of nearby Maquoketa) at the Green Bay yard in those days was bound to be a success in the advertising field.

The Wagners—Paul and Viola—would have to draw a “joker” like Hook in their first experiment with a journalism graduate!  But it didn’t discourage them completely, because they’ve called on others since with similar backgrounds, and given them the best “boot” training in the world for the greener fields that always seem to loom beyond.

It was a pleasure to meet with a few Odebolt army reservists at Camp McCoy, Wis., during a party one night in August, boys who had hardly been weaned when I was pitching for the Chronicle.  I remember telling them—as I have told countless others—about my warm affection for Odebolt and the Chronicle.

The compensations which have come my way, material and spiritual, since that early June day of 1933 when I hitch-hiked into Odebolt (after sleeping the previous night in the baseball park at Denison) are attributed in large measure to the wonderful apprenticeship which Odebolt offered:  the long rope (enough to tie myself in a tough knot now and then) which the Wagners allowed me in the operations of the Chronicle—editorial, selling and layout of advertising and job printing, subscription sales and shop work; the cooperation of the businessmen and farmers; and above all the spirit of the people.

My sincere hope is that our two sons may be attended by the same providential angel when they set out to conquer the brave new world.  What more could any father ask? 

My hearty congratulations to the Wagners on the opening of their new Chronicle home, with best wishes for many more happy and less laborious years.  And cordial greetings to all old friends.

Charles Wieser Now in Omaha

(Source – The Odebolt Chronicle Progress Edition, October 29, 1953, Volume 65, Number 44)

One blustery day towards the end of January, 1949, I rode a Greyhound bus to Odebolt to take my first job as newspaperman. Little did I realize that those Greyhound buses and a rough stretch of road between Denison and Odebolt would provide some “hot” news during my stay in Odebolt.

To me, the single most important news development during the 1949-52 period, as it affected Odebolt, was the paving of Highway 4 [Highway 39 in 2002]. It provided the missing link in the Omaha to Twin Cities highway.  Yet it had a greater importance to Odebolt because it made the town accessible to more people.

The most satisfying community achievement during the 1959-52 period was the establishment of the Odebolt Community Fair on a firm basis. 
Surveys by competent observers are beginning to show that the economic future of small towns may depend on what degree farmers are permitted to participate in community affairs.  Events such as the Odebolt community fair are high on the list of activities pointed to by those observers as methods of cultivating good farmer public relations.  At the same time such events perform a valuable service to agriculture.

Another thing I like to recall about Odebolt is the excellent school system.  And those specialists who are studying the future possibilities of small towns emphasize that schools are a very strong force in a progressive community.

There were many significant news happenings while I was in Odebolt.  Included were the “death” of the commercial club, the drilling of a new well, the establishment of the Chamber of Commerce, the street resurfacing program and several spirited elections.  I’ll never forget the fold-up of the old Commercial club.  As I remember it, a public meeting was held to discuss the club when someone stepped forward and said “The thing is dead.  Let’s leave it dead, and let’s bury it.”  That’s what happened, too, although the Chamber of Commerce was soon formed to take its place.

I mentioned Greyhound buses earlier.  When the Greyhound management decided to re-route their buses via Ida Grove, it provided an explosive issue—the  kind which make good newspaper copy.  Odebolt lost out on that one, but not without a stiff fight.

Causing a lot of heated comment was the council’s decision to drill a new well and decisions regarding the sewage disposal plant.  It was the issue of the disposal plant, as I recall it, that touched off the fireworks in the city election which broke all records for number of voters.

I could recall many other instances, such as the oiling of main street the afternoon before spring opening my first year in Odebolt.  The post-war building boom and the remodeling of many of the business places were also prominent in the news.  I can’t recall the details, but the Chronicle got into a bucket of hot water when it took a stand on a rural road proposal . . . one of the times that the editor got more than one scorching letter from irate subscribers. 

Since leaving Odebolt I have been on the staff of United Press in Omaha.  The main function of our Bureau is to supplement the international and national news with Nebraska news for our clients, numbering about 25.

The big difference in writing community news and state news is that the latter is necessarily more impersonal.  Sure, names make news and personalities of every kind are frequently important news—but the writer for a news service cannot be associated with his news as intimately as is the small town editor.

In closing, I would like to recall my pleasant association with the various Chronicle staffers.  Paul and Viola were patient in “breaking in a greenhorn” and the back shoppers were helpful all along the line.

Congratulations on the new plant, a credit to the Chronicle and the town as well.  Hope to be able to take a formal tour of the layout when you have your open house. 

(Transcribed by B. Ekse)