Nick Hager
The late Nick Hager, a longtime pressman for the Williston Herald and Wick Communications, is seen installing a new press in Williston in the 1960s. That press lasted more than 40 years, but was removed last week to make way for a new press.


By Jacob Brooks

In case you haven’t heard, the Williston Herald is getting a new printing press. It’s a pretty big upgrade, actually. Printing presses can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are big, bulky and newspapers don’t replace presses very often. I have worked at newspapers for 10 years, and this is the first time I have been at one when a new press is installed.

The last time the Williston Herald got a new press was in 1969. I wasn’t even alive at that time.

My old neighbor, the late Betty Hager, told me a story about that press install a couple of years ago.

She told me her husband, the former head pressman for the Herald, Nick Hager, came home one day very upset about a new style of printing press, and embarrassed that he didn’t feel knowledgeable enough about the new equipment.

“Betty, I’m going to quit,” he said to her.

Concerned, Betty went down to the basement and called Walt Wick, the newspaper’s publisher, who rushed to the Hager’s home. At a meeting in the Hager’s living room, it was decided that the proper training would be provided for the new equipment Betty also gave me a copy of a special “retirement” newspaper the Herald printed in honor of Nick’s retirement. Nick worked for the Herald and Wick Communications for more than 30 years, installing presses and building office furniture around the country.

In that special retirement newspaper, those that worked with Nick wrote him letters of well-wishes and recounted old tales.

Walt Wick wrote about the how Nick would fix the sometimes “catastrophic” problems when a press goes down and the “hell and highwaters we endured when we went (to a new press).”

A good press is only as good as the pressman operating it, as Walt pointed out in his letter to Nick.

“As usual in these circumstance what saved the day was the application of the Herald’s famous Universal Solvent — your sweat,” he wrote.

The Herald’s old press worked (for the most part) for more than 40 years, pumping out millions of newspapers, with countless headlines detailing this history of the Williston area and the stories of the local residents. If the press could talk, it would be our area’s greatest historian.

Today, new pressmen are working to install the new machine. It’s actually a refurbished press originally built in the 1980s. But the modern pressmen are excited about the newer technology. Here at the Herald, we are all convinced we will have a better-looking newspaper once it is running properly.

Installing a press is a very involved process. The press was shipped here on two separate trucks, and the pressmen will be working extra hours and turning plenty of wrenches to get the press ready to run.

I’m told the new press may be ready for a trial run next Thursday. It’ll be interesting to see what it looks and sounds like while it’s running. And, more importantly, what the newspaper will look like, once it pops out of the new press.

History is told in Williston every day, especially nowadays. And there’s a new press in town that will be printing that history.

Jacob Brooks is the managing editor of the Williston Herald. He can be reached at [email protected] or 572-2165.