August 9, 2006
QUOTE
By AMY GITTELSOHN
The owner/editor of The Kourier newspaper in Willow Creek bid "farewell" to readers last week as the final issue of the paper hit the streets.
The 40-year-old paper had been for sale but it did not attract the right buyers, said Jess Garst, who bought the paper in 1974 with his wife Peggy. Peggy Garst died last December after a two-year battle With ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
"Ever since my wife died I've really not had what it takes to put the paper out every week,"
Garst said. "I took the death of my wife pretty hard. ...She went to the office almost every day up to about the last three weeks."
Garst, 73, of Burnt Ranch, added that he had put the decision-making for the paper
in the hands of his adult son, Jay, and his son called recently and told him that the time had come to close the paper. "I felt like he was a little more objective than I was," Garst said.
The Kourier, published every Wednesday, had a printing press purchased six years ago, which has been sold and hauled away.
The Garsts moved to Willow Creek from Los Angeles and bought The Kourier in 1974. Garst already had many years in the newspaper business. He started out helping his father with a country weekly newspaper in Kansas. He was a Linotype operator around the age of 8 and a journeyman printer at 12.
He went on to work for the Los Angeles Times for 21 years, starting as a Linotype operator and later taking a management position in the production of the paper. At age 42 he took early retirement and bought The Kourier.
The Garsts worked as a team, she handling the business side of the paper and he handling the mechanics and editorial content.
Among' the topics that piqued Garst's interest was a drawn out 33-year legal battle over Yurok claims to timber proceeds on land within the Hoopa Valley Reservation. The "Jessie Short" case was eventually settled.
"I was publishing The Kourier at the time the Jessie Short case was going on," Garst said, "so I had a lot in the paper about that."
"I've had a lot of good help,"
said Garst, who thanked friends who have been especially helpful and an employee, Brittny Smith, who learned from Peggy and picked up many of her duties at the paper.
In addition to running the newspaper, Peggy Garst owned Yarn 'n' Things in Willow Creek, and Jess Garst served for years on the Trinity Union High School District Board of Trustees and the Trinity Hospital Advisory Board.
Asked what his plans are, Garst said, "I think I will go south and play around with my grandchildren and my greatgrandchildren. ...When I get tired of that, hard to tell what I'll do."
Garst plans to sell his home in Burnt Ranch and perhaps get an apartment in Southern California. He has family members in Vista and Pasadena.
The owner/editor of The Kourier newspaper in Willow Creek bid "farewell" to readers last week as the final issue of the paper hit the streets.
The 40-year-old paper had been for sale but it did not attract the right buyers, said Jess Garst, who bought the paper in 1974 with his wife Peggy. Peggy Garst died last December after a two-year battle With ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
"Ever since my wife died I've really not had what it takes to put the paper out every week,"
Garst said. "I took the death of my wife pretty hard. ...She went to the office almost every day up to about the last three weeks."
Garst, 73, of Burnt Ranch, added that he had put the decision-making for the paper
in the hands of his adult son, Jay, and his son called recently and told him that the time had come to close the paper. "I felt like he was a little more objective than I was," Garst said.
The Kourier, published every Wednesday, had a printing press purchased six years ago, which has been sold and hauled away.
The Garsts moved to Willow Creek from Los Angeles and bought The Kourier in 1974. Garst already had many years in the newspaper business. He started out helping his father with a country weekly newspaper in Kansas. He was a Linotype operator around the age of 8 and a journeyman printer at 12.
He went on to work for the Los Angeles Times for 21 years, starting as a Linotype operator and later taking a management position in the production of the paper. At age 42 he took early retirement and bought The Kourier.
The Garsts worked as a team, she handling the business side of the paper and he handling the mechanics and editorial content.
Among' the topics that piqued Garst's interest was a drawn out 33-year legal battle over Yurok claims to timber proceeds on land within the Hoopa Valley Reservation. The "Jessie Short" case was eventually settled.
"I was publishing The Kourier at the time the Jessie Short case was going on," Garst said, "so I had a lot in the paper about that."
"I've had a lot of good help,"
said Garst, who thanked friends who have been especially helpful and an employee, Brittny Smith, who learned from Peggy and picked up many of her duties at the paper.
In addition to running the newspaper, Peggy Garst owned Yarn 'n' Things in Willow Creek, and Jess Garst served for years on the Trinity Union High School District Board of Trustees and the Trinity Hospital Advisory Board.
Asked what his plans are, Garst said, "I think I will go south and play around with my grandchildren and my greatgrandchildren. ...When I get tired of that, hard to tell what I'll do."
Garst plans to sell his home in Burnt Ranch and perhaps get an apartment in Southern California. He has family members in Vista and Pasadena.