Death Of A Small-Town Newspaperman

Paul and Joyce Williams owned and operated The Johnstown Breeze in Johnstown, Colorado, from 1956 to 1975; both of them also continuing to work for subsequent publishers. A third-generation newspaperman, Williams passed away this week at age 81.

A third-generation printer and journalist, Williams naturally came by his love of the business of chronicling the history of a community in type and ink. He spoke of falling asleep as a child on Wednesday nights in a newsprint nest of discarded papers while his father printed that week’s edition of The Grove City Record in Grove City, Ohio.

By Citizen Correspondent Matt Lubich

Date Posted: 09/05/08

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One of a vanishing era of newspapermen, Paul Williams, former owner and editor of The Johnstown Breeze, in Johnstown, Colorado, died Tuesday at age 81.

In 1943, at age 18, he left Ohio and traveled to Lincoln, Kan., where he worked for a year at the Sentinel-Republican newspaper. He then worked for a dozen years as a Linotype operator and printer at the Farmer-Journal in Osborne, Kan. It was during that time he met a Kansas farm girl by the name of Joyce Applegate. They were wed on July 21, 1945.

In the summer of 1956, he, Joyce, and their two small children moved to Johnstown when they bought the Breeze from Norman and Earline Scott.

Under the headline “Our First Edition” on Aug. 9, 1956, Williams wrote, “You are now reading the first edition of The Johnstown Breeze under the direction of its new owners.

“Much hard work has gone into this paper, mainly because our knowledge of people and events here is almost nil. As we live here from week to week we hope to find our task a little more easy.

“There will be changes in policy and style, no doubt, from the former owners’ ideas as no two people’s theories of printing a newspaper are the same.

“…It will be our civic duty to report news as it happens. Our task will include the printing of births, schools, activities, marriages, anniversaries and deaths. We shall meet many obstacles, some of which will be overcome easily and others which may be difficult. Many of our decisions or stands we will be obligated to take will, to the best of our ability, be done for the good of the community. We want you to know we are 100 percent for Johnstown.

“…The Breeze is by and for the people of Johnstown. It is your paper.