For the first time in five years nobody will read this column in The Ledger. Owner Lee Enterprises pulled the plug on Hemingford’s community newspaper as the final issue went out Thursday, December 5, 2024.
Editor Kay Bakkehaug told me about the paper’s demise in a text message last Monday, asking if I wanted to write something to go with other reactions she was gathering or maybe expound on the decline of newspapers in general. Instead of firing off a few sentences before deadline I opted to interview Kay about what The Ledger has meant to the community since its first issue on October 7, 1915, and what the future may hold.
Just as issues of The Ledger have made it to the Keep Alliance Beautiful Recycling Center to become something new, I am optimistic Kay will coordinate an effort to continue telling Hemingford’s story. “I want to come together to have a community-funded and owned paper, maybe just online,” she said.
News of the closing was not a shock given how many newspapers have ceased to exist this generation though it was sad to hear. Kay said she read a statistic that four and a half shut their doors every week in 2023. After hiring Kay at the Times-Herald I was proud of the job she did putting her own stamp on a weekly newspaper for the past six years.
Kay gathered reactions from readers to print saying there “was kind of overall shock and disbelief – how can something that’s been around for 118 years just have been taken away.” She added that people looked forward to “Ledger day”, Thursday, when they’d get the latest edition. The paper started out as the Hemingford Journal in 1907. There was a woman editor in the 1920s, Kay noted. The Kuhn family owned and operated the Ledger for three generations starting in the 1930s until its sale to the Omaha World Herald’s newspaper group in 2007.
Tradition has been a hallmark of the newspaper, such as a Madonna and child photo of a local mom and baby in its 69th year this month. “We’ve always ran the church news and reflected the faith of the community. . . . Keeping those traditions alive has been so important to me,” Kay said. She had a passion for Lifestyles encouraging people to submit weddings, birthdays and other milestones for the page that have increasingly been shared online. “I love that aspect of it, it’s all about community, keeping people informed.”
Kay is an Alliance native and AHS graduate. She and her family have continued to live here while she works in Hemingford. Her readers have been supportive throughout from helping spell local names in photo cutlines initially to taking pictures at sporting events. “I can’t thank the community enough,” Kay lauded.
Children and school activities have been a staple of Ledger coverage. Kay even gifted HHS grads with subscriptions. There was a diverse readership, “all generations like the ledger.”
Past issues will still be available archived at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center with the past decade online at newspapers.com. The newspaper office is owned by the Kuhn family and had been leased to Lee Enterprises for $1 a year. Some antiques from the Ledger’s history will likely end up on display or in storage.
Upcoming weeks and months will be vital to “recycle” a publication that offered a print edition into a model unique to Hemingford for years to come. Kay has already reached out to Hemingford Public Schools, which runs a monthly newsletter, and a few community leaders. She is also looking at small towns, such as Crawford, that still have a newspaper for inspiration.
“The heart of a community newspaper is about the feel good stuff,” Kay said. “I got to figure out how to keep it going. . . . Once a town loses its hometown newspaper, it loses part of their identity.”