Remembering Phillip Egan, editor of the Elroy Leader Tribune

By KAREN PARKER

County Line Publisher Emerita

In September 1963, I was muddling my way through my junior year in high school while in Elroy, Phillip Egan was cranking out the 24th issue of the Elroy Leader Tribune. Did I even know where Elroy was back in those days? Probably not. Back then, I was in the frame of mind to depart the dairy state and go to college in a far more exotic location than a cheesemaker town.

I know what Egan was up to because I spent some time last week rummaging through the graveyard of memories, once known as my office. It’s a place I rarely visit in my old age. I toy with selling the building until I’m stopped by a horrid thought: What in the heck would I do with all that stuff? 

Yes, I know newspaper addicts can go to libraries and read old newspapers on microfilm. The Elroy Public Library has most old newspapers online, and at sites such as newspaper.com, you can read old newspapers from around the world until your eyeballs fall out. 

But there is something about holding newsprint in your hands and turning the pages. It seems odd to me that in this age of social media, which is a contributing factor in many newspapers’ extinction, folks still want to see obituaries in the newspaper. Long before ink strikes paper, the news of a death has made the rounds online. Does a death not seem real until it’s in print? Do we need clippings for the family Bible? Do we feel that the news of the passing of a life that is only remarked on the Internet will disappear as fast as that bit of Hollywood gossip you read yesterday but cannot find today?

But here in good old newsprint, some 60 years later, the Elroy Tribune tells me of the death of Emil Dallman, 68, who died in a Madison hospital. He was a World War I veteran and a retired switchman for the Omaha railroad. Emil departed early compared with Frank Buckles, who drove an ambulance on the Western Front and died in 2011 and was believed to have been the last surviving World War I veteran.

Dallman died nearly 10 years before the Omaha and was absorbed by the Chicago and Northwestern. He might have kept his job for a time, but ultimately even the Chicago and Northwestern would exit the industry. In fact, the line between Elroy and Sparta was near its end, so readers would have been smart to respond to an ad offering trips to the Shedd Aquarium and a stay at the Morrison Hotel on Madison Street in Chicago. 

Some of the names in the paper are familiar; most are not. Donna Drews was named junior class president at Royall High School. She would become Donna Arndt and teach my kids home economics at Brookwood, later dying in a car accident in 1996. Grayson Zuhlke, who lives not far from me, was named president of the FFA Club. Suann Thompson listed her 22 students in the Elroy Beginners Band. As Suann Degenhardt, she taught my kids music and is now retired. 

The Make America Great Again crowd must not be referencing 1963. Yes, even remote Juneau County had its issues. Two young men forced high school teacher Roger Prysbella off the road, and then pounded the tar out of him, sending him to the Tomah hospital. 

Three men were killed when their light plane crashed near Elroy, and the Juneau County Sheriff was caught using county money for personal long- distance calls. Every mention of the newly released 1964 model cars touted their luxurious size and their V-8 engines with nary a mention of gas mileage. Well, we certainly are paying for that now. 

On the other hand, one could buy a hamburger at Ted’s Super Valu for 49 cents a pound, and a subscription to the newspaper would set you back just $3.50 a year.

You could buy advertising in the paper for a measly 50 cents a column inch, compared with the $8 we now are forced to charge to make ends meet. And, wowie, did the businesses support the Elroy Tribune! Nearly a half-page ad from Northcott Motors and an even bigger ad from Steffen Motors. 

My old friend Bill Weber advertised his photography studio in Wilton, while Drs. Balder and Boston noted their office hours. The latter treated my eldest for a broken leg way back in 1976. 

The Lorraine Rice Band was playing at the Kendall Community Hall, and should you want to go in a formal gown, you could find one at Hansen’s Clothing. 

By 1971, Phillip Egan had all the fun he could stand in the newspaper business. In a sentimental farewell to Elroy, he blamed his aching joints on his decision to move his family to Boca Raton, Fla. He seemed to believe the end of the road was imminent. He was likely to be surprised that life was not done with him so quickly. 

His son, Peter, who is a well-known auto writer for Car and Driver and Cycle World, brought Phillip back to a nursing home in Oregon, Wis. Phillip died in 1999, just about the time South Central publications closed the Elroy newspaper. Phillip is buried in the Elroy Cemetery. 

In my time, three newspapers have closed their offices in Elroy. Elroy may have been early to the trend, but now it has become a stampede of closing newspapers all across the country. 

In his farewell column, Egan said, “The pleasant burden of producing a weekly newspaper is not a dollar and cents game, but one more of creativity in attempting to portray life as it is happening in a community. That people are doing things very worthwhile on a smaller, varied scale is the grist that causes the presses to run. Recording life here has been ample reward.” 

As newspapers fade away, I wonder who will tell the stories. At the click of a mouse, I can rummage back through the decades and read a detailed history of the Coulee Region. 

Maybe no one really cares. Maybe we are fine with ephemera: here today and gone tomorrow, our past vanished into the vapor of the Internet. 

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