Darla Downs, former publisher ….

Darla Downs, former publisher of The Herald-News in Wolf Point and The Searchlight in Culbertson told the

Sun Times, “I switched to printing in Great Falls about 15 years ago. When I started the Northern Plains Independent

(Wolf Point) and the Community News (Culbertson) in May 2019, the Great Falls Tribune was my first call to get a time slot for printing my new papers. Over the years, the staff in Great Falls were great to work with and extremely helpful.”

Downs continued, “I’m disappointed by the corporate decision to silence the presses in Great Falls. For now, we will print in Helena. However, there are enough challenges each week when publishing two rural weekly newspapers without the added worry of how far the finished product has to travel before we can get the newspapers into the hands of our readers.”

Of the people that ran the presses that produced the newspapers, a few are moving on to other ventures. Some, I could tell, would like to stay “on the press,” but are not sure what opportunities are as the daily papers continue to lose readers and advertisers. Some, like REP’s Thomas just want to take a breather then see what comes next.

I ended up spending about eight hours on the pressroom floor on Tuesday. I realized how much I missed running a press. Many at the Tribune and River’s Edge will feel the same after a while.