50 years ago May 1, Albans purchased The Ogden Reporter - A Sesquicentennial feature story

EVERY FAMILY HAS SPECIAL  dates to always remember. There are always birthdays, anniversaries and the holidays. Our family is no exception. May 1, 1966 was the date we signed our contract to purchase The Ogden Reporter.

FIRST I’LL START AT THE BEGINNING . . . I was a senior at Ogden High School in the Class of 1957, not dating anyone in particular and with prom right around the corner, I was refusing to go! My older sister Kay told me I should ask someone. “Well Kay, I don’t know who to ask,” was my quick reply! 

“Let me think on that one and I’ll get back to you,” she promised. A few days later, in a telephone conversation, she suggested I invite one of her classmates, Gary Alban. He was a senior and I was a junior when we had a class in the gym on dancing. I did remember he was an excellent dancer then. Invitation extended . . . Gary accepted, and one thing led to another. Soon we were a couple.

Gary was a kid right out of high school and earlier had started his interest in newspapers as a Boone News paper boy at the age of 12. As a freshman in Ogden High School, he was hired in 1953 by Carl Sexauer. That began his love of the industry. He always told the story of his excitement the first day on the job. Gary began right after school by asking Carl what he could do to help. Carl’s reply was to sweep the floor. Gary immediately swept the floor and with a great deal of enthusiasm, asked Carl what he could do next. “Well, sweep the floor again!” he was told. Hardly what Gary wanted to hear.

Following my graduation in May, I was hired at Northwestern Bell Telephone Company in downtown Des Moines in their machine printing department, and ran a Multilith printer. I loved running the press and always joked that that’s where I first got ink on my hands! Two and 1/2 years later I returned to Ogden and we were married at Swede Valley Lutheran Church south of town.

We  were  MARRIED exactly one month and five days when Gary came home for lunch and told me Carl Sexauer had asked him if I would be interested in working with him at The Ogden Reporter. The following Monday morning on Dec. 6, 1959, I joined the staff, working three days a week in the front office typing, proofreading and helping to hold down the front office, with Opal Mendon as my mentor. And I didn’t even interview for the job.

 ast forward the calendar. David our son was born in February of 1961, and almost two years later Diane, our daughter, was born in November of 1962. I had my responsibilities as a new mom and for several years that kept me pre-occupied. When the kids were both in school in the fall of Diane’s kindergarten year, I returned full time to the staff.

 ollowing Carl Sexauer’s sudden death in October of 1965, we began seriously talking about buying the paper. May 1, 1966 we signed the contract with Eleanor Sexauer. I remember that day quite well. 

Read more in the April 27, 2016 issue of The Ogden Reporter.