PAGE 2 - INTER-COUNTY COOPERATIVE PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION • SPECIAL EDITION • OCTOBER 7, 20 0 8
I C C P A
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Y e a r s
• O p e n
h o u s e
75 years in the making
We tell stories.
ICCPA Timeline 1933-2008 June 22, 1933: First organizational meeting to form ICCPA; first plant in Centuria November 2, 1933: First Inter-County Leader published, Bennie Bye is the co-op’s first manager
And since it was founded 75 years ago, our newspaper, the Inter-County Leader, has told thousands of stories - from wars to weddings, graduations to gridiron greatness, births to deaths. In nearly 4,000 issues since 1933, the Leader has kept the people of Burnett and Polk counties informed of what goes on in their backyard - and of local connections with the world. Our own story began in the Great Depression with a group of farmers some local newspapers deemed radical in their struggle to gain a stronger voice in their quest for a better economic future. Feeling unfairly characterized and perhaps even slandered by reports in local papers and papers across the state, those farmers felt they
needed some way to speak out for their own interests. The movement to form cooperative businesses was reaching a peak across the nation - and so it was that the group of local farmers in Polk and Burnett counties began their own newspaper. For five dollars you could become a voting member in the cooperative. Bennie Bye, a journeyman journalist, took on the job of editing and managing the new paper. The initial editorial content of the Leader in 1933 focused on the milk strikes and dispelling rumors about the strike. But editor Bye also made it clear that the Leader was to be a vehicle to offer a forum for everyone. “No lines have been drawn,” Bye wrote in the premiere issue, “but all stock has been sold with the understanding that this is to be a cooperative paper serving
the best interest of the common people, whether they be farmers, professional men or business men...” The original goal of the Leader met, the nation’s first cooperative-owned newspaper continued as a strong public forum on a number of issues, editor Bye at the helm for 20 years, a clear voice, advocating cooperatives throughout the upper Midwest. Seventy-five years and four editors later, the Leader maintains a realization of its roots, a strong public forum and a proud record of defending freedom of the press. Not to overlook the cooperative principal of providing needed services and jobs. We look forward to what the future holds for the newspaper industry, the Inter-County Leader and its Web site. - Gary King, editor
What we do... Members of the Leader staff rode on a fl flo oat in a Centuria parade in 1934.
1939: Moved plant to Frederic 1944: 24x30 addition 1951: Purchased the Frederic Star 1953: Romain Brandt named manager following the death of Bennie Bye 1958: Edward F. Greinke named manager following the resignation of Romain Brandt
Most of a front page was dedicated to the Leader’s fi firrst editor, Bennie Bye, the week after his death.
More Timeline, page 3
The Inter-County Cooperative Publishing Association publishes two newspapers and five Advertisers each week, adding up to more than 700,000 papers printed each month. We also have a commercial printing department that designs and prints business cards, brochures, calendars, posters, and more. ICCPA employs more than 70 persons with an annual payroll of approximately two million dollars a year. Depending on its yearly success, it returns a percentage of its net profit to businesses and employees.
COVER: A composite photo with one of the 4-by-5 Graphex cameras used in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leader reporters, and the building on the west end of Main Street in Frederic that served as the home to the Inter-County Cooperative Publishing Association for approximately 35 years. The sign above the door, taken from a 1940s photo, was superimposed onto a present-day photo of the building.