‘After 40 years, I could exhale’

New Richland resident LaVonne Meyer, former publisher of the New Richland Star, remembers that, after ending up as the paper’s owner essentially by default in 2003, she felt pressure to move forward with the paper’s 120-some-year legacy and do everything she could to help that legacy continue.

But it was an overwhelming task.

She recalls that, when she sold the paper to Jim Lutgens in June of 2005, it was a tremendous relief. “After 40 years,” she recalls, “I could exhale.”

Meyer graduated from New Richland High School in 1959 and was hired by the Star in 1962. Referring to then-publisher Margaret Engesser, Meyer describes being uncertain about a job with a newspaper. “When Margaret asked me to work at the Star, I said ‘No. No. No.’ But she said ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.’” 

Meyer remained on staff for decades, despite what most would consider a very rocky start. “My first assignment was reporting on a dead body,” she claims. “There was a car accident out on Highway 13 and I had to go take a picture. Talk about getting ‘real’ real fast!”

Given the small staff and the many different tasks called for at a newspaper, Meyer became thoroughly acquainted with the day-to-day operation of the business—from the mundane to the sensational, working side by side with Engesser.

All this while she and her husband, Richard, raised their family, which consisted of sons Brad and Bruce and daughter Brenda (now Dobberstein). Also during the sudden loss of her husband after 25 years of marriage—the news of which she received while on the job at the paper.

During the late 1990s as Engesser gradually withdrew, Meyer stepped into her shoes bit by bit, observing that, “When you work for a newspaper, every day is the same, but different. You have to take the bad with the good.”

In 2003 when Engesser officially retired, Meyer was, perhaps, the only choice to take the reins, eventually buying the business for a token price. At that time, the paper was located in what is now the power and light building along New Richland’s main street. It had only two staff members, Meyer and production manager Reed Waller—an artist and 1967 high school graduate with New Richland roots, whom Meyer had known since he was, she claims, “three-and-a-half feet tall.” Waller had returned to the New Richland area in 2000 and was hired as a graphic designer by Engesser. 

The two were making do with antiquated equipment in a gradually deteriorating building. Waller admits, “We weren’t able to produce that much of a paper.”

In addition to everything else, Engesser’s death shortly after her retirement and the subsequent liquidation of family assets gave the paper no choice but to find a new base of operations.

Still, perhaps out of determination to keep the publication’s legacy alive, Meyer persevered.

In her time with the paper, it had gone from using lead linotype equipment and literally “pressing” its images to designing ads and pages using computers. Photography had gone from bulky, box-like cameras that used black-and-white film to stream-lined “point and shoot” units that didn’t need film at all. Bookkeeping had evolved from pencil and paper logbooks to computer spreadsheets.

“And ‘Poof!’ went 40 years,” she recalls. During her tenure, many workers came; nearly as many moved on. “Some people just aren’t cut out for this job,” she observes.

Speaking of longevity, Meyer claims that the Star owes its survival to Reed Waller as much as to herself, saying he “deserves to be recognized by the community” for his dedication and commitment. 

Meyer says she considers herself very fortunate to have found a career in journalism, and takes pride in all she was able to achieve and accomplish. But she reveals with a smile as wide as her ears that, when she sold the Star and retired at age 62, “It was a huge relief. A giant weight off my shoulders.”

In her words, the paper’s 2005 buyer, Jim Lutgens, “Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Meyer’s love for New Richland and its neighboring communities is strong, as are her roots. 

When she and Waller got together to be interviewed for this story, they laughed over and over again about their experiences with the operation of a small-town newspaper, and perhaps especially about the Engessers themselves. Although Margaret ran the Star for decades on her own, she had originally shared its daily operations with her husband, Emmett, who died in the 1970s.

Both Meyer and Waller share memories of earlier times, some even from childhood, of the Engessers. It was well known, for example, the Engesser children would sometimes exit the house via the roof in an effort to escape the couple’s stormy “political discussions.”

It was well known in town that in front of the Engesseser house lay two animal sculptures, an elephant representing the republican party and a donkey representing the democrat party. Some mistook the figures for bipartisanship or an effort to remain neutral. The truth was Margaret was a Democrat and Emmitt a Republican. Supposedly their “discussions” could be heard from blocks away.

"They could get in an argument here or there," Meyer jokes. "But there was no doubt the love those two had for each other was once in a lifetime."

Meyer’s parents were Jasper and Lola Hagen. Her three children have given her six grandchildren and an extensive family which, she believes, includes the Engessers. The families remain close. Meyer and Cheryl Engesser still get together for lunch at least once a month. 

Meyer's message to young journalists out there and really anyone is, "Follow your dreams. Follow your passion."

Meyer extends a thank you to the Star readers for their many years of support, patronage and kind words. "We couldn't have done it without you," she says.