The Faces of the Press & Dakotan – Kelly Hertz
One day in August 1984 a young
Kelly Hertz stepped into the Press &
Dakotan Sports Department, he didn’t
know it then but that day was the first
step in setting the course of his career
in journalism.
“I applied for a part-time sports
position on the recommendation of
Dave Gottsleben, who had been a
teacher at Menno when I was in high
school,” Hertz said. “At that time Doug
Card was the Sports Editor. Seven
people applied and they hired all
seven.”
In 1984 the sports position
consisted of answering calls from
coaches about area games and
entering the results into a type of word
processor called a Compugraphic and
covering various area sporting events.
At that time the Press & Dakotan
was an afternoon paper so the sports
staff were the only people who worked
in the evenings.
“In November of that year we
moved our Saturday edition to a
morning paper,” Hertz said. “It was
weird because we were usually the
only ones here at night but on Friday nights the place would be full of
people getting the Saturday edition out. We learned a lot about doing a
morning paper during that time.”
In 1984 Hod Nielsen, who had been sports editor at the Press &
Dakotan before, was hired as an interim Sports Editor.
“Somehow it just ended up being Hod and I left,” Hertz said. “He
asked me if I wanted to learn pagination and when I said yes he
showed it to me once and then I just had to figure it out from there.”
he has held for the last 21 years.
“I said, ‘Yeah I’ll give it a shot’,” he said. “I told myself I’d give it at
least 2 years.”
Over the past 2 decades a lot has changed in the publishing world.
“I remember in 1990 we wanted to do a color photo on the front page,”
Hertz said. “We had to send it out to Topeka, Kansas to get processed
and it took 9 days. We had to have the size set and we couldn’t change
it. When we got the Jobo (film processor) it changed everything. We
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Hertz said he was terrified of
photography in those days, but he had
a personal mantra he used when asked
to do something new.
“Early on I always told myself,
‘Whatever they ask you to do, don’t
say no,’” Hertz said.
So when he was asked if he could
run a camera, he lied and said, “Sure.”
He was sent to take a photo of a
football game in Freeman.
Although he was totally terrified he
said, “The photo wasn’t too bad and
now I really enjoy (photography).”
On July 1, 1993, the Press & Dakotan
officially became a morning paper,
Hertz said.
“Although it was nice to be
done for the day at 1pm we were an
afternoon paper, I didn’t miss getting
here by 5:30 am,” he said. “I pulled a
lot of all-nighters as Sports Editor.”
Hertz decided to move to the
news department because he was
ready for a change from sports and
was named Assistant Managing
Editor. Soon after he was picked for
the Managing Editor position, a role
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