CLARION, Pa. (EYT) — Dave Staab, owner of the 133-year-old Progress News, presented an overview on Monday of the weekly newspaper with a circulation of 15,000 newspapers in Venango, Clarion, Butler, and Armstrong Counties.

(PHOTO: Dave Staab (right) owner of the Progress News share a photo of the original newspaper’s location in 1885 with Clarion Rotarian Marty Resnick.)

The first newspaper was published on May 14, 1885, by Erastus ‘Rasty’ H. Cubbison. Staab thought it was interesting and noted that two other Emlenton newspaper rivals of Rasty’s moved their papers out of town, with one owner, Charles Halderman, moving to Oil City and starting the Oil City Blizzard that later merged with the Derrick and one who moved to Forest County, Peter O. Conver, who starting the Forest Press.

Dave’s father, Walter, bought The Progress News in 1968, and this year marks the family’s 50th year of operation.

His father was a foreman for the Pittsburgh Press in the composing room. He bought the paper from Bill Campbell’s widow, Julia. Bill was Bob Campbell’s brother who owned Banker’s Supply House in Clarion.

“The processes that we have gone through since the purchase of the paper have changed dramatically over the years,” said Staab. “When my dad bought it in 1968, printing was emerging from hot metal to cold metal, and now today we are in the digital age.”

Staab offered an overview of printing history with a picture of the linotype machine from the hot metal days and noted the difference between that system and Guttenberg’s original moveable type system that was invented in 1439.  Individual letters were selected for words and each page had to be set before applying ink and printing.

Staab said not much changed in the printing industry until the 19th century, 400 years later, when the linotype was invented. The Linotype machine allowed the composing of a complete line of type and the assembled line was then cast as a single piece using lead, called a slug, in a process known as hot metal typesetting.

“In the late 1960s, we were transitioning out of hot metal into cold type,” said Staab. “What we do today is compose the whole paper on a computer. It’s just me and a couple of other people who compose the ads and layout the pages. Once that’s done, we make high-resolution PDFs of all the pages and send them to West Penn Printing in New Castle, who also prints the Sharon Herald, New Castle News, and others, including ours. We send the files electronically to an FTP site on Friday evenings, and we pick up the finished paper, including having it stuffed with inserts over the weekend. We then mail it out on Mondays.”

The Progress News is free and does not require a subscription. Advertising and inserts pay for printing and production.

“Clarion County is our biggest mailing area,” said Staab. “We cover and saturate all of Knox, East Brady, Foxburg, St. Petersburg, and we store drop in the Rimersburg and Sligo area. We’ll also go out to Emlenton (part of Emlenton is in Clarion County as well), Clintonville, Parker, Bruin, Karns City, Petrolia, North Washington, Eau Claire, West Sunbury, Boyers, and Chicora.”

Staab delivers copies to 15 different post offices each week.

Staab also has a commercial printing business and prints a number of special projects, such as the popular historical photo books by Kevin Beichner.

Staab concluded by thanking the Clarion Rotary for the opportunity to be their guest speaker for the week.