In the time that North Dakota has had more than 30 governors and Grand Forks two dozen mayors, the Herald has known only a few editors since its founding in 1879.
The title has changed over the years, from editor to managing editor to executive editor and back to editor. Duties of the person holding the top leadership post in the newsroom also have varied, sometimes including responsibility for the editorial pages as well as news pages.
Founder George B. Winship was first, of course, and the newspaper's masthead still carries his charge: "It will be the people's paper, run strictly in their interests, guarding jealously their rights and maintaining boldly their cause."
W. P. Davies held a number of positions and was well into a nearly 50-year stint as editor when M.M. Oppegard and a group from the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Ridder Newspapers took the reins in 1929. Oppegard kept Davies on as editor but took over that role himself when Davies died in 1944.
Jack Hagerty had worked for United Press International during the 1940s and 1950s before coming to the Herald as news editor in 1957, soon rising to managing editor and then editor, retiring in 1983.
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During his editorship, the Ridder Newspaper chain merged with Knight Newspapers, and the Herald newsroom was briefly led by Tom Schumacher, Mike Finney and Beverly Kees, a former Star Tribune features editor who became executive editor in 1981.
She was succeeded in June 1984 by Mike Jacobs, who relinquishes the editor post this week to Mary Jo Hotzler. Jacobs continues as publisher of the Herald and leader of a Forum Communications Co. project to combine and expand coverage in the Minnesota and North Dakota state capitals and in the Bakken oilfields of western North Dakota.
Reach Haga at (701) 780-1102; (800) 477-6572, ext. 102; or send email to chaga@gfherald.com .
