No longer ‘Pressed’ for time
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By Jacqueline Hough for the Daily Herald
After spending most of his life working, David Hager is not sure what to do in the next phase of his life — retirement.
“It’s a strange feeling knowing I don’t have to get up to go to work,” he said.
He admits he feels guilty about not going to work but knows he has put in his time and now it’s time to “kick back.”
It is time he will use to spend with his wife, Colleen, his two adult daughters and three grandchildren.
Recently retired, Hager worked at The Daily Herald as press foreman for 26 years.
He came to the newspaper in 1986 from Williston, N.D. It was because then Publisher Steve Woody called him about coming to work here.
Hager’s father, Nick, had suggested his son because The Daily Herald needed someone to help with the production end.
Nick Hager worked for the Williston Herald and Wick Communications — The Daily Herald’s parent company — for more than 30 years, installing presses and building office furniture around the country.
Hager said when he first arrived, the press room was a nightmare.
“It was so bad I couldn’t tell what color the press was,” he said.
“But I thought I would give it a shot.” And for 26 years, he did.
He arrived with his wife and daughters. While he doesn’t miss the cold of North Dakota, he said he has never completely gotten used to living in the South due to the large population.
“The Eastern sea coast contains 75 percent of the people who live in the United States,” he said.
The other thing is the summer heat.
“I can take the heat here but not the humidity,” he said. “It gets hot up here.”
However, he remembers a cold winter in North Dakota when he was a school bus driver and it was 56 degrees below zero.
“I don’t miss the cold or wind,” he said.
Hager said because of his job, he did a lot of traveling, helping with other newspapers and learning new things.
Traveling to places such as Louisiana, Arizona and Las Vegas.
Now retired for a little more than two weeks, Hager said he misses the people at The Daily Herald.
Dennis Carter, a pressman at The Daily Herald, was working at the newspaper when Hager started.
“He was a good guy to work with,” Carter said.
“He will be missed. He knew a lot about the press.”
On his first day of retirement, Hager woke up at his usual time.
“It was weird and then I realized I didn’t have to worry about the machinery, work or doing inventory,” Hager said.
“It was like a weight lifted off.”