Hyrum Crusader

Hyrum Crusader

When I was just out of High School, I was caught up with the idea of doing whatever I could to make the community where I lived a better place.  Somehow I got the idea in my head that I was going to start a newspaper and report on local issues.  It would be a forum for me to express my opinions about the community where I had grown up, as well as have a few positive programs about the local sports programs.  This was important to me as my brothers and I had run the local youth sports programs for several years.

It was my intent to make this a monthly publication.  Of course you can’t make a monthly publication unless there is someone around to print the paper.  I approached Ken Downs form Downs Printing, which was the only printing office in Hyrum.  I got from him an idea of how much it would cost me to print a newspaper.  I am sure he gave me a really good deal.  Especially since he would have to do all thy type set.  I had a typewriter at home as my only tool (this was before the age of computers.)

With an idea of the cost, I then had to generate the revenue.  I didn’t want to sell the paper so it depended on advertising.  Hyrum Drug was my major advertiser.  My brother-in-law managed the drug store.  However, I approached the other businesses in Hyrum (there weren’t that many.)  I had made up sample sizes for ads and presented them to the other business owners.  The Scissor Wizard, where I cut my hair placed an ad as did Maud’s the local women’s clothing store.  I approached Anderson Lumber.  Over time I even had some business from Logan put ads in my paper.  This mostly was Impruvall Tire, which was located in Logan but was managed by someone from Hyrum.__________

And so was born the Hyrum Crusader.  The first issue was ______.  The last version was ________just before I went on my mission—so the paper lasted a little more than a year.   It was printed a paper that was better than newsprint.  It was larger than regular paper, with a fold in the middle making it effectively a four-page publication.

I covered stories from regular journalism to positive pieces.  I sometimes tried to do investigative reporting.  Some people complained about the noise of snow mobiles in town.  This was a relatively new mode of transportation and they were very loud.  I conducted a poll, trying to call people from different parts of the community.  I discovered this was only a problem for those along popular snow mobile routes. 

When the city allowed a contractor to pretty much bulldozer Camp Hollow, I ran an expose of that.  When I was young we went on a field trip to Camp Hollow, and it was a special place.  Camp Hollow was the place where we were told Hyrum was originally founded.  The first winter, settlers had built dugouts in the side of a hill trying to stay out of the cold.  The next summer the actual town of Hyrum developed a few blocks away.  Camp Hollow was covered over, and the plaque that designated the place was moved to a park, making way for residential development. 

I covered local politics from time to time, writing about City Council meetings. 

I would also do photo layouts such as a photographic essay of the t-ballers—they were cute. 

I also was the newspaper boy.  I tried to deliver a copy to every home in Hyrum.   I don’t think that was really all that many copies as Hyrum was not a very large community, less than 4000 with some 1000 households.

I printed the Hyrum Crusader with no journalistic experience.  However it did motivate me to want to be a journalist, and so when I returned from my mission I studied journalism for about a year.  During that time I had some stories printed in the Utah Statesman, the Utah State University newspaper.  I also did some work for the Cache Citizen, a new weekly paper in Cache Valley.  (I covered the Hyrum Fourth of July rodeo for them.)

My experiences with the Hyrum Crusader also lead me to another publication.  I put together a book of poetry from young contributors in Hyrum.  This included some artwork or animals by a friend of mine growing up who was good at art, Neil Frank.  It also included poems from friends I knew.  I got the idea form this based on a poetry book which was published by the high school every year.