By Elliott Brack
Editor and publisher
NOV. 16, 2018 | Going to funerals is something I remember since I was 4 years old, when my younger brother died. Over the years, we’ve felt it important to attend funerals of friends. As a veteran funeral attendee, we can distinguish between a good and bad funeral. (Length is not the criteria.) We realize those we’re losing won’t be at our funeral, and the older we get, the fewer there will be to say farewell to us.
We were to attend two funerals this week, but backed out of attending one Tuesday because of the widespread rain across North and Middle Georgia. We though it prudent to stay home, rather than drive 193 miles one way to Fitzgerald for the funeral.
The funeral was to be that of Jerry Pryor, 87, retired publisher of the Fitzgerald Herald Leader, who himself was an institution in that town, having been born there and the newspaper publisher from 1959 until1996.
We have known the Pryor family for 45 years, first meeting them through the annual convention of the Georgia Press Association, held many of those years at Jekyll Island. With most newspapers publishing 52 weeks a year, many smaller publishers used the three day convention of newspaper-people as their only vacation, bringing the whole family. Virtually every major daily was also in attendance. So all got to know not only the professionals, but their families, too. Today with corporate-owned newspapers not springing for convention dollars, not as many newsmen attend the GPA convention, sad to say. The convention is down from 600 in attendance in its heyday to less than 100 today.
Pryor
Up until modern printing methods came into vogue, the smaller publisher was constantly at the keyboard of the formidable and sometimes cantankerous Linotype machine producing its hot lead slugs. Since many smaller papers had only one Linotype, the publisher operated the machine to produce every line of type in each paper. Therefore, he didn’t have time to get out and sell advertising himself. He relied often on advertising walking in through the front door, and had a relative small paper each week.
Since the introduction of “cold type” and computers, typesetting is no longer the major obstacle of the newspaper. Typesetting is not even an afterthought, as modern production consists of shifting blocks of type around the computer screen.
Jerry Pryor was a person of the more modern era. He wasn’t trained to be a Linotypist for newspaper work, but graduated from the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia, becoming a newsman-reporter. After serving two years in the Army, and then working on newspapers in Swainsboro and Milledgeville, plus owning part of the Wrightsville newspaper, he in 1959 purchased the Fitzgerald Herald. Then a few years later, he bought the Fitzgerald Leader, and combined the two weeklies. Today his daughter, Becky, and her husband, Tim, are the management team at the Fitzgerald Herald-Leader. Jerry’s fellow publishers recognized his leadership abilities, electing him president of the Georgia Press Association in 1989-90.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, newspapers were changing. Publishers realized that they were using their costly newspaper press on a limited basis. Jerry was among the first to get several of his fellow publishers to go together, buy a modern press, and in 1970 combine their printing operations. (Their Pineland Press co-op printing plant operates out of Ocilla.) Utilizing the off-set printing method, which was easier and cheaper, these publishers produced a bigger, slicker, modern and eventually colorful newspaper than before.
We were disappointed not be in Fitzgerald for the celebration of Jerry’s life. We counted him a good friend.
Gerald W. “Jerry” Pryor (1931-2018): May you rest in peace.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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