 

5 Chuck Dunham: the genuine article

by Kathy Willtioite

Thirty-two miles southeast of
Grinnell lies Deep River,
population 323, the home of the
Deep River Record. “The Only
Newspaper Printed in Poweshiek
County.” “The Farmer's Favorite
Since 1899," the Record is owned
and published by Chuck Dunham.

Originally from New York,
Dunham graduated from Hamlin
University in St, Paul. After
several years with other
newspapers, Dunham became a
reportEI‘ for the Grinnell Herald-
Registe-

IN I955, DUNHAM leit Grinnell
and bought the Record, the only
handset newspaper left in Iowa, for
$1,000. At the time he bought it.
says Dunham, “the whole shop was
a museum.”

Usually just a single sheet
printed on both sides. today the
Record has a circulation of almost
700. At a dollar a year for
Powcshiek County residents, this
weekly newspaper is a hard
bargain to beat.

AT FIRST. DUNllAM thought
the weekly paper “would be a
great hobby.” However. it proved
to be a more time-consuming
venture than he had bargained for.
lttook him all weekendto set hall a
column, for it had to be done by
hand, letter by letter. To alleviate
this, he soon became the proud
new owner of an antique Linotype
machine bought lrom the Kansas
City Star.

To this day, while other papers
have gone to the speedier, less
troublesome offset press, Dunham
is still loudly hammering out copy
on his Linotype. The hulking black
machine is quite a contrast to its
present day counterpart, the quiet,
computerized, typewriter-like
typesetting machines. An antique
in good condition, his Linotype is
worth about a $1,000 today.

The Record is printed on an old
fashioned cylinder letter press,
which prints from lead to paper,
one sheet at a time.

THE PROCESS Dunham uses is
less costly than modern methods,
which require “non-replaceable
chemicals and plates which are
used once and pitched," he says,
Also, copy set on Linotype is more
sharply defined.

Dunham composes his copy on
the Linotype as as sets itia
practice which speeds up the
process but, he admits, results in
typos, “There is the disadvantage
that it doesn‘t get proofread or
corrected," he says.

BUT THERE SEEMS to be an
element of nostalgia which causes
Dunham to stick to his old
fashioned methods. “There is a
relation between literature and its
composition and printing," he
says because “a newspaper's lan-
guage is structured by the nature
in which printing is done.’ He says,
there is “a definite change in
ﬂavor from the good old news
papers to the modern ones.”

The Deep River Record remains
essentially a oneman operation,
The bulk ofthe paper's contents is
Sent to Dunham from the school,
the courthouse, local groups,
congressmen, and other sources,
so there is, he says, ”no reporting,
no ad sales, no editing." The only
staff member is Dunham's wife,
Shirley, who helps set type “bet
ween housekeeping Chores.” He
says, “I don’t know ifshe likes it-l
never asked her!”

THE RECORD IS “a hobby" to
Dunham. who has owned “seven or
eight” newspapers, His main
source oi income is irom “peddling
machineryLbuy-ing, repairing,
and selling old Linotypes and letter

 

presses. He buys obsolete

i machinery and, by way of Chicago,

exports it to countries with a
surplus of manpower, such as
Mexico.

Dunham also owns two other
weekly newspapers, one in Ackley,
Ia and one in Dows. 1a., both
larger towns than Deep River.
These papers, which “are in the
building state." are composed with
the newer computerized
techniques and are prolltable and

proudest of took place in the early
‘Go'swhen he printedthe details of a
Powcshiek County Courthouse
corruption case. iotiier county
papers, he claims, ignored the case
because “they were on the payroll
oi the courthouse") One “petty
grafter" of a sheriff eventually
resigned, and Dunham says the
light the Record shed “on the
episode may have led to (the
sheriff’s) change of jobs."
DUNIIAM ADMITS some of the

, A

Maverick from Deep River

“nichut dull," says Dunham,

ALTHOUGH FAR FROM dull,
the Record is anything but a
profitable business venture. Ins
deed, the owner describes the
newspaper asa “financial burden”
which loses $50 to $75 a week, “It’s
ridiculous,“ says Dunham. “I’ve
tried to quit a couple or times,”
However, he says, his subscribers
insist that “even if it's printed as
big as a postage stamp, they want
to see it every wee ."

Despite its popularity, Dunham
doubts whether the Record is
“something worth doing" and says
it is not “the kind of newspaper I'd
like it to be. , . There are so many
causes, so many live interesting
people to feature," he says, ”but it
would take a half a day to a day to
get the information," which would
be time away from his machinery
business; therefore it would be too
costly to indulge his hobby to such
an extent,

BEFORE IlE GOT married and
settled down, the paper was
usually larger, he had more sub»
scribers, and he put many more
hours into it ”Now,” he says, “I
guess I hardly ever come down to
the shop at night anymore He
used to hustle to get stories," says
his long-time friend Bob Globus,
owner of JD’S Restaurant. “He's
calmed down a lot. It‘s too bad "

Although he admits one “has to
go back quite a way to find a
worthwhile project" the Record
has undertaken, Dunham asserts
that in the past has printed
“important worthwhile stories no
other paper would print.”

FOR INSTANCE. he once
”broke a courtordered logjam on
reporting a corruption case in
Johnson County" by printing
names of indicted public officials,
As a result of his uctlon, other
papers could print the story
without impunity.

The muckraking Dunham seems

lnformatlon he printed about the
corruption case “was not properly
documented. as it should have
been." However. he says, “I look
at it this way: I knew the truth of
what I was printing . . . lt was
vicious, but true.”

The publisher’s attitude is ap
parent to anyone who reads the
Deep River Record: documen-
tation is not Dunham’s strong
point,

THE JUICIEST PART 0f the
Record is the editorial portion.
which is located on the front page
under the title of “Chuck's Chirpr
5.” items of questionable taste, as
well as items some may consider
slanderous or libelous can be found
here. Some more extreme
examples inclue venomous attacks
on gay righs and women‘s rights.

Dunham recalls printing things
that “I wasn’t proud of. . . I’d see it

in print and say, ‘Oh gee, did I say
that?‘ ” But his general philosophy
is more along the lines of: “If it’s
said in conversation, it might just
as well be said in print. Why should
it be any different?"

GLOBUS, A.K.A. The ”Sheik of
Poweshiek,” says that Dunham
“actually has an extremely high
sense of integrity.” Although he
disagrees with Dunham‘s opinions
“most of the time,” he says that
“he has the prerogative to express
his opinions.”

When it comes to referring to
people by derogatory names,
Dunham says, ”It's just bad
manners, l won’teven try to justify
it.”

Through his newspaper,
Dunham attacks government
spending and ”the waste of public
money,” and he keeps an eye on
how state and county funds are
spent, He pokes fun at politicians in
general and Democrats in par-
ticular. He opposed the “Panama
Canal giveaway," and he defends
“singletssue politics.”

SAYS GLOBUS ABOUT
Dunham’s political philosophy:
“01' course Chuck would be left-
handed, since he's so far to the
right politically. His head is always
turned to the right, reﬂecting his
political position; he has trouble
keeping his neck straight."

Dunham does not know if his

“I knew the truth of

what I was printing. . .

It was vicious, but trtw.”

DUNN/\M llAS NEVER been
sued, but he says once “a lawyer
wrote me a long, windy letter about
retracting a paragraph I wrote
about town politics. I reprinted the
paragraph along with the letter "
Nothing ever came of this incident,

However, Dunham has not
always been able to avoid trouble

‘wlth the law. in 1963, the IRS

padlocked the door of his business
because he owed $300 in income
taxes. Since it is illegal to break a
government padlock, Dunham
simply took the hinges off the door
and came and went as usual.

DUNHAM IlAS DONE more
than write about politicians. He
ran for the state legislature “five
or six times” in the '60:, losing the
last election ”by 17 votes."

Dunham, Globus says, has “a
19th century philosophy,“ The
newspaperrnan chuckles and
agrees that he could be described
as a 19th century liberal.

A CONSERVATIVE Republican,
Dunham certainly shares the 19th
century antipathy for big govern
ment, which he refers to in the
Record as “Big Brother."

photos by
Paul Reich

 

readers agree with the political
views put forth in the Record, but
the question does not concern him
much, “They may not agree," he
says. but at any rate," they are
tolerant.”

OF DEEP RIVER. Dunham says
that “small towns are more
noticeably not interested in the
future . . Progress |S not a comr
modity in Deep River," Because
people are more interested in what
happened years ago than in the
future, he says any paper is “a has
been,"

Although Dunham receives a
letter to the editor every few
weeks, he says, “The kind of
garbage most papers print doesn’t
inspire letters to the editor, and
that includes the Record,"

Modern newspapers have
evolved into something quite
different from the days of Mark
Twain’s witty journalsim, and
Dunham captures some of this old»
fashioned flavor. Dunham's
columns may offend some, and
may amuse others, but his readers
find the Record a refreshing
change from those modern con
ventional papers which, as
Dunham says, print only
“fashionable tripe,"

 

