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That was then...

This is NOW!

Thursday, July 2, 2015 • Vol. 51, No. 6 • Verona, WI • Hometown USA • ConnectVerona.com • $1

The

Verona Press

Verona gets a ‘backbone’50 years ago,a newspaper

succeeded where

others had failed

JIM FEROLIEVerona Press editor

Flipping through the brit-tle, yellowed pages of the16-page inaugural VeronaPress issue, on May 27,1965, they look much likeany other issue from the

1960s.There’s one hard news

s tory surrounded by ahodgepodge of fluffierblurbs about scouts andschool kids and engage-m e n t s a n d u p c o m i n gevents, along with photosof stone-faced people pos-ing or staring at the cam-era and quite a bit of self-congratulation thrown in.It was a different time then,and publisher Butler Del-aney even felt it necessaryto add an editorial explain-ing why Verona needed anewspaper.

One notable reason a

newspaper was the “back-bone of any community,” itsaid, was reporting on suchthings as the local PTA andhomemaker clubs.

These days, it wouldbe hard to find anyone inVerona who’s ever beenpart of a homemaker club,much less find a newspaperreport about it, but the mis-sion remains the same – tokeep people connected totheir neighbors through fea-ture stories and bits aboutlocal happenings, whileof course keeping theminformed about importantgoings-on with their localgovernments.

Les t anyone wonderwhether the Press had ahard edge to it in the earlydays, it certainly did.

Original editors David andGabriella “Mickey” Eners-en got progressively moreinvolved in government andbusiness stories until theyupset too many people inFebruary 1966, just prior tothe high school referendum,and Henry Schroeder tookover as editor/co-publishera couple of months later.Schroeder, who ran the paperuntil 1998, on many occa-sions fired off an angry edi-torial or sharply worded

Above, part of a full-page ad fromRohde’s restaurant in downtownMadison in the first issue.

Left, a story from that May 27,1965, issue introducing thestaff of the Verona Press. A yearlater, Henry Schroeder took overnearly all operations.

Below, a photo from Oct. 28,1965, showing two men clean-ing up their mess after defacingthe water tower.

A very differentplace in 1965JIM FEROLIEVerona Press editor

In May 1965, Verona was small, but growing quickly.It had fewer than 2,000 residents, and the highways

that served Veronawent right throughthe middle of town,on bumpy, danger-ous roads that stillhad gravel parkingspots. Madison was10 miles away.

The library washoused in a singleroom inside an oldbank building, andits “addition” a yearl a t e r mean t ge t -ting one extra roombecause the policedepartment moved.The newly formedVerona Area PublicSchools was a looseco l l ec t ion o f 13rural, single-schooldistricts with mostlyone-room school-houses.

The communityhad existed for morethan 100 years, butour annual fes t i -val was still sev-eral years off, andnobody had evenyet tried to apply thephrase "HometownUSA" here.

Miller and Sonswas one-tenth thesize it is now andhad two competitors

just down the streetin Paar’s Market and Grabandt and Mani. There was onebank – a 63-year-old independent one – one community

Schroeder, Delany built firmfoundation that still standsJIM FEROLIEVerona Press editor

When local leaders approached Butler Delany aboutstarting a newspaper in Verona in 1965, their desireshad almost reached a point of desperation.

Twice in the previous six years a newspaper hadopened and closed in Verona.

According to former Press editor Karl Curtis’ “Sesqu-centennial History of Verona: 1847-1997,” the VeronaReporter lasted six months in 1959 and a MiddletonTimes-Tribune spinoff was around for an even a shortertime than that.

Prior to that point, the Times-Tribune, Mount Horeb

Turn to 50 /Page 4

50th anniversary

Still aroundMiller and Sons

Verona Electric

Ace Hardware (VeronaHardware)

Verona Plumbing andGlass (1967)

Kelley’s Market (Mobil)

Carnes Corporation

Ellis Manufacturing

Johnson’s Barber Shop

American Legion Post 385

Gone but notforgotten

Harrington Chevrolet

Bank of Verona

Verona Furniture

Verona Pharmacy

Grabandt and Mani groceryFischl Lanes

Kamm-Ann Lanes

Eagle’s Nest supper club

The Inn at the Auditorium

A&W Root Beer

Verona Lumber

Blizard’s True Value

Turn to 1965 /Page 7

Turn to Leadership /Page 6


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CongratulatesThe Verona Press on Their

50th Anniversary!

Where are they now?Verona Press founder

Butler Delany died in1999, and longtime edi-to r /pub l i s he r HenrySchroeder followed in2013. But the Press spokewith other former leadersof the newspaper to find

out what they’re up to.Mark Peterson (1988-1995) is still in the news-

pape r business , havingfor the past 15 yearsedited a similar paper inStewartville, Minn. Heinitially moved to Texas

befo re Schroeder’ s sonBill hired him shortlyafter purchas ing theStewartville Star.

Bi l l Schroeder hadtried to buy the paperafter he couldn’t get hisdad to sell the VeronaPress by itself to him. Hestuck around for a whileafter Woodward Com-munications purchased

Schroeder Publications in1998, then purchased theStar in 1999.

Curtis, who had livedhere for several years

befo re he star ted writ inghere part-time under Har-ville in 1996, is still verymuch involved in theVerona community as theexecutive director of theVerona Area Chamber ofCommerce.

And Harvi l le , whonow goes by Deb Hol-

brook, used a life-chang-ing experience whileresearching a story in herlast year here to eventu-

ally become an ordainedminister in Madison.

Mark PetersonDates served: July 1988-July 1995

Living in: Stewartville, Minn.

Now working as: Editor, Stewartville Star

Describe Verona at the time: The people were really friendly.There were some hotly debated issues.

What it was like working at the Press: Hard work, but it wasalso fun at the same time.

What did the newspaper bring to the community: We keptpeople abreast of how the government was spending theirmoney. There were a lot of interesting people we wrote about.

Deb (Harville) HolbrookDates served: July 1995-June 1998

Living in: Southwest side of Madison

Now working as: Commissioned minister at United Church ofChrist for health care and hospice

Describe Verona at the time: When we moved from La Crosse,we were told go to Verona (because) it has the best school systemin the state. The sports teams seemed really important, and thecommunity theater. There was a housing boom and the schoolboom. Lots of attendance at school board meetings.

What was it like working at the Press: Henry (Schroeder) gaveme a break. I went from being the front secretary to being the

editor without any real experience at it except watching what wasgoing on. Butler was still cutting and pasting the classified ads.

Karl CurtisDates served: June 1998-March 2006

Living in: Verona

Now working as: Executive director of Verona Area Chamber ofCommerce

Describe Verona at the time: We were moving from smalltown to small city. Everything had a political edge to it.

What was it like working at the Press: I used to save all mystories on a 3.5 inch floppy disk and bring them down to Oregon.We still waxed (stories and photos) and placed them by hand. Iwent from being Mrs. Curtis’ husband to a local celebrity.

What did the newspaper bring: A sense of identity, really.People just loved getting their picture in the paper. They really tookownership. Henry Schroeder when he hired me, one of the thingshe wanted to do was make the paper more active and especiallyliven up the paper’s editorial page. We succeeded in doing that.

Press inspires futures for pair of high schoolersSCOTT GIRARD

Unified Newspaper Group

Rick Fetherston and KenBehnke were copy editorsat the Verona High School’s“Indian Echoes” newspa-per when the Verona Presscame into existence.

Shortly after, though,the Press’ editors wanted abetter pipeline to the highschool, and they asked thepair to begin the “HighSchool Hi-Lites” sectionthey covered until theirgraduation in June 1967.

The two would expandtheir work beyond the cov-ering the high school, andthey provided “continuity”through early editorial tran-sitions, Fetherston said.

Now, both still live inVerona, having spent manyof their years in a similarfashion they did to thoseyears at the Press in the1960s.

Fetherston became atelevision reporter andlocal news anchor, work-ing for Channel 3 and15 for 22 years. He thenworked for American Fam-ily Insurance for another22 years in their corporatecommunications officebefore retiring last year.

“I basically spent mycareer in communications,and it all started with thePress,” Fetherston said. “Ihad considered the VeronaPress the start of my jour-nalistic career.”

The Press didn’t changeBehnke’s career path quite

so much – he worked for

years in the U.S. PostalService and is now a Real-tor – but he’s certainlyspent his share of timeusing knowledge he pickedup while at the paper.

After helping to initiateTown Board coverage atthe Press and also cover-ing governmental bodieslike the Village and Schoolboards and the fire district,Behnke has spent decadesserving in elected positionson those very same bodies.

“I saw firsthand howeverything worked,” Behn-ke said.

He spent eight years onthe Verona Town Board,20 on the fire district

commission and has been

serving on the VeronaArea school board since1995.

“I always had an inter-est in politics and govern-ment at that level,” he said.“Most people have no ideaof how local governmentworks and all the littleminutiae involved.”

Fetherston said it didn’tsurprise him to see Behn-ke or himself continuingsome of what they did backin the late 1960s for thePress.

“That really must haveinspired within Ken a realstrong interest in govern-ment,” he said. “It certain-ly inspired and confirmed

my interest in journalism.”

Behnke and Fetherston handled the “High School Hi-Lites” columnfrom fall 1965 until their graduation in spring 1967.


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District different, issues often the sameSCOTT GIRARD

Unified Newspaper Group

“The addition to thisbuilding is needed becauseof the growth in the areaserved by the village ele-mentary school. All class-rooms in the village schoolare presently in use, andwith the normal growthVerona is undergoing, weshall have no place to putthe additional children inthe village school unless thefour-room addition is con-structed.”

Printed on Sept. 16, 1965,that quote (with more cur-rent phrasing, includingthat Verona is a city) couldeasily have been utteredthis year by Verona AreaSchool District superinten-dent Dean Gorrell.

But the superintendent ofthe newly established Vero-

na Area Public Schools wastalking about the needs of amuch smaller district, onethat had a budget of only$795,347 for the 1965-66school year.

John Lawrence was thedistrict’s first superinten-dent, beginning with theconsolidation of Veronaschools in December 1964.Before then, many ruralelementary schools aroundthe area fed into VeronaHigh School, but there hadbeen no central leadershipor organization.

“T he re was no oneauthority over the whole

district,” explained KenBehnke, a member of the

Verona Area School Boardsince 1995. Behnke was ahigh school student at thetime of the consolidation.

But even after the merger,it was structured differentlyfrom today’s district. Fourof the rural school buildingsremained in operation forgrades K-6 under the dis-trict’s oversight, while thedistrict ran the Verona Ele-mentary, Junior and Senior

High School buildings forstudents within the village

and grades 7-12.Developments covered

in the Press throughout1965 included rapidly ris-ing enrollment, land acqui-sition and a study that laidout a 10-year plan for thedistrict’s growth.

While those same issuesstill come up regularly inthe Press 50 years later,Behnke recalled a muchdifferent student body.

Beyond simply the size –60 students, small enough

to fit in a photo on the frontpage – the students hadmuch more similar back-grounds than today.

“There was no diversity,”Behnke said. “That’s just theway the community was.”

He laughed as he recalleda story of a student beingsent home because he

wasn’t wearing a belt, andexplained that shorts werenot even thought of as anoption to wear to school.

Behnke has witnessedthe changes up-close as aschool board member forthe last 20 years, and saidthe school system has “justbecome a lot more complexfrom many different per-spectives.”

“You didn’t see the dif-ferential in wealth and pov-erty that you see now in theschool district,” he said.“Students with learning dis-abilities I don’t think wereserved as well as they are

now.“The larger the system

gets, the more complicatedit gets.”

It was getting largerquickly in those early years,with 1,114 students enrolledfor the 1965-66 school yearand electors approving afour-room addition to theelementary school becauseschools were full every-

where.To help with that same

problem, 1965 was also thefirst year for the VeronaJunior High School, whichhoused seventh- and eighth-grade students to ease theburden on the rural elemen-tary schools and VeronaElementary School, nowknown as Sugar Creek.

Those rural schools alsoserved a purpose as com-munity centers, Behnkerecalled, helping create a“closer social network inrural areas.”

Over the years, the dis-trict sold off those build-

ings, like Valley View,Camp Badger and Gordon.

Those sales began in 1965,when the dis t r ic t soldWhite, McPherson, AndrewHenry and Shaller schools.The district sold the finalof the rural schools, MapleGrove, in 2000.

The years shortly after1965 wouldn’t slow downfor school coverage in thePress, with a new highschool open in 1968 andcontroversy when Lawrencesubmitted a surprise resig-nation Sept. 23, 1968. RickFetherston, who graduatedfrom VHS in 1967 but con-tinued to correspond for thePress, recalled the meeting.

“I remember coveringthat, and it was a big story,”Fetherston said.

Lawrence told the boardthe “anti-administrationand anti-Lawrence feel-ing that some people havein the District” could get

in the way of solving theproblems facing education,according to Fetherston’sarticle.

The board voted to acceptLawrence’s resignation atan Oct. 7, 1968, meeting.

The district has had manysuperintendents since –including now-state super-intendent of schools TonyEvers – and again andagain, it asked voters toapprove referendums forland purchases and build-ings as growth continued.

Last year’s attendancewas more than 5,000, andthe preliminary budget for

the 2015-16 school year:$62.9 million.

Above, the 60 students in the Verona High School class of 1965. Below, the Andrew Henry schoolhouse, one of the rural schools used bythe district. The building, at the corner of Whalen Road and Old PB, is now used as a private residence.


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news story about an illegalclosed session or a question-able decision from the Vil-lage Board. He pulled nopunches with those in powerand made himself into acommunity leader, presiding

over the chamber of com-merce and other communityorganizations and even run-ning for County Board andstate Assembly.

Schroeder eventuallykicked himself upstairs aspublisher but continued tocontribute columns, evenfor a few years after sell-ing Schroeder Publicationsto current parent companyWoodward Communica-tions, which already ownedthe Stoughton Courier Hub.Woodward soon sold a cou-ple of Schroeder papers andrenamed the collection asUnified Newspaper Group.

Over the years, the Press

went through several edi-tors, including Mark Peter-son (1988-95), Deb Harville(1994-98) and Karl Curtis(1998-2006), leading to cur-rent editor Jim Ferolie.

The Press has gonethrough dozens of employ-ees and contributors overthe years, and one of the firstwas a writer who continuesto be well-known in Verona50 years after he took hisfirst job here. Ken Behnke,a semiretired postal worker(and current Realtor) hasspent the past 20 years on theschool board, but he startedhis working career in high

school, co-writing the High

School Hi-Lites column withfuture WISC-TV news direc-tor Rick Fetherston.

Behnke would go on tocover all sorts of news dur-ing college and afterward,

and he was the first person tocover the Town Board, eventhough the town had as manypeople as the village backthen. He finally left the paperto become a trustee on theTown Board in 1975.

Fetherston, who also stilllives in Verona, recalls howmuch the paper energized thecommunity.

“The community hadn’thad a real newspaper,” hetold the Press last week.“The community was veryexcited about it.”

What stood out to both ofthem about the Press, partic-ularly in contrast to today’snews coverage, was howmuch it was about a day in

the life of average people.“There was more reporting

on everyday life,” Behnkesaid, noting that the com-munity’s own social networkwas organized around rural

schools and 4H clubs. “(Itwas) some of the stuff you’dsee on Facebook now.”

The first yearThe Press was the third

Verona newspaper to get itsstart in a six-year span, andits original crew didn’t lastlong. The paper’s first edi-tor lasted just a year, withthe Enersens, a husband-wifeteam, splitting the duties asmanaging editor and newseditor, respectively.

“(The first editors) werevery energetic and aggres-sive,” Fetherston told thePress. “They ran into a diffi-culty with a very small groupof business people in town,

and they, in effect, lost their jobs.”

Until then, they coverednews stories, but to fill theinsides, they relied heav-ily on submitted sports and

community pieces and com-pilations from several corre-spondents who reported onwhich families hosted visi-tors or took trips out of townor held dinner parties.

Starting that fall, Fether-ston and Behnke gave therundown on high schoolsports, academic groups,new classes and teachers(including the introductionof longtime teacher and crosscountry coach Randy Marks)and anything else that caughttheir eye.

The newspaper was freefor two months, then startedcharging $1 for four monthsas a special introductory rate.

Some notable stories from

that year included the immi-nent closing of Paar’s Market,after the death of one co-own-er, a strike and subsequentunion vote at Carnes – whichhad more than 500 employ-

ees – and a series of profilesof all the local churches, lead-ing up to two prominent dedi-cations. The first issue of thePress tells about the upcom-ing opening of Salem UnitedChurch of Christ, and a fewweeks later, a four-page spe-cial advertising section tellsall about the new St. AndrewParish building.

Other notable stories andphotos included a shot ofpeople cleaning graffiti offthe defaced water tower(which has since been torndown) and all sorts of busi-ness news, including a storyabout the A&W Root Beershop’s expansion, the move

of Harrington Chevrolet and

the opening of Verona Fur-niture on the outskirts of thevillage, all of which are longgone.

The paper even poked funat itself in honor of the cham-ber of commerce’s “CrazyDays” promotion by printinga page of silly, made-up sto-

ries under a “Verona Mess”flag. Among other things, itshowed a 23-story high-risebuilding and claimed a newhigh school was opening,showed a photo of presiden-tial candidate Barry Gold-water and said that favoriteson Harry Coldwater wascoming home and told ofthe police chief testing out anew car – with a photo from“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” amovie about a 1920s jalopythat could fly.

In those days, the Pressoffice was located on NorthMain Street in a house thatwas torn down in 2004 tomake way for Walgreen’s.It later moved to far newerfacilities at 451 S. Main St.,which is now an apartmentcomplex, and then to 120 W.Verona Ave., now the site ofthe Verona Area Chamber ofCommerce.

“It was just Henry Schro-eder and an office person,”Behnke said of the tiny offic-es the Press held during thosestints. “We just did it on ourtypewriters. We would justbring the stories in.”

The Schroeder yearsBy 1966, Schroeder and

Delany had formed a part-nership called Southwest

50 years of big stories

• Fire destroys Paoli grocery, tavern – 1966

• New high school opens – 1968

• Quasquicentennial starts a tradition – 1972

• Village president resigns under pressure – 1977

• Verona becomes a city – 1978

• Cable TV controversies 1978-82

• Charter school and referendum debates – 1990s• U.S. 18-151 bypass opens – 1995

• FitzRandolph and Neil Walker win gold – 2000,

2002, 2004

• Signing/arrival of Epic – 2002-05

• Triple homicide – 2003

• Bank of Verona sells – 2007

• Merger effort fails – 2008

• EF-3 Tornado destroys school – 2014

50: Press was third newspaper to give Verona a try; early crew didn’t last longContinued from page 1

Turn to 50 /Page 5

The first two months of the Verona Press went to every householdin the village, then this ad was in the paper, saying “last free week.”


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Suburban Publications, inwhich the two were botheditor and publisher of theirrespective territories, Schro-eder in Verona and Delanyin Oregon. By 1980, Delanywas ready to retire and sold

his interest to Schroeder.Schroeder continued tobe the paper’s editor, but hesought more and more helpand finally hired Peterson in1988, a few years after hisson, Bill, joined the familybusiness out of high school.

Photos were often simplis-tic – set-up shots of peopleshaking hands, sitting downor looking like they’re work-ing hard – except for theoccasional submitted photoof an athletic event or a com-pilation of several 2-inch-wide pictures of a parade. Itwasn’t until Bill Schroeder inthe early 1980s that the Pressmanaged to bring in lively

photos or cover high schoolsports on a regular basis.

Eventually, Bill Schroederbegan handling more andmore of the business dutiesand editors like Peterson andHarville took over the newsoperations until finally, Hen-ry Schroeder was ready toretire and spend his wintersin Arizona.

During his more than 30years with the paper, HenrySchroeder continued to dis-play his passion for localgovernment and supportinglocal businesses, frequentlyoffering his opinions overwhat the local government

should or shouldn’t do.“He was very passionateabout everything, especiallypolitics and politics withinthe communities that he hadpapers,” Bill Schroeder said.

Henry Schroeder contin-ued to be a firm guiding handthroughout his time at thePress, which presided overVerona becoming a city, thestart of the Hometown Daystradition, the building of thefirst city hall, library and firestation and all sorts of con-troversies.

Peterson, who had comefrom a smaller paper in Pard-eeville, recalls Schroeder asgiving him wide freedom ina “relaxed atmosphere.”

And Holbrook, whoworked in the front officewith Peterson for about ayear, recalls Peterson as set-ting a good tone for her tofollow.

“He gave the Press a verygood balanced feel,” Hol-brook said. “I think people

appreciated that.”Peterson eventually moved

with his family to Texas, andHolbrook stayed on until

just weeks before Schroedersold the group to WoodwardCommunications, Inc.

That was happening dur-ing the heart of Verona’stransition from small townto suburban city. Holbrookremembers when a certainissue, such as a discussionover cutting the ag program,would draw farmers fromaround the area.

“They would show up intheir bib overalls and every-thing,” she said.

WCI takes overCurtis was on the job for

just a couple of weeks beforehe found out his son had braincancer, and shortly after that,the papers were sold.

“(Schroeder) did not letanybody know,” Curtis said.“It was a total surprise.”

Despi te tha t suddenchange and Verona’s volatil-ity around that time, the Presshas maintained quite a bitof stability since then, withCurtis serving eight years andFerolie another nine.

“Verona was really start-ing to grow,” Curtis said.“We were building housesso fast the schools couldn’tkeep up.”

As Verona changed andgrew to 10,000 residents andbeyond, the paper changed,too, as did people’s per-ceptions. Computers, the

Internet and digital photogra-phy made everything faster,easier and more complicatedat the same time, and peoplebegan to assert themselves aspart-owners of what they sawas a community good.

“People took the papervery personally,” said Cur-tis, who would often findhimself delayed just pickingup groceries. “It was part oftheir community, and theythought they owned it.”

Part of the reason, per-haps, was the tension of the

time. Certain politics havealways gotten people ani-mated – from the battles overfluoridation in the 1960s andthe petition against spending$600,000 on a City Hall inthe 1970s to charter schoolsin the 1990s, but Curtisserved during a particularlylong-lasting period of rowdi-ness – the Target the Basicsmovement in the early2000s, along with “vicious”land use fights in the towns,and “drama” over expansionin the city.

“Verona was a very activepolitical place,” Curtis said.“We had some of the nasti-est school politics you canever imagine, and that kind iffiltered into our city politicsand town politics.”

That sort of thing hadmostly settled down by thetime Ferolie took over, giv-ing way mostly to growth anddevelopment and generallycooperative efforts amongand within local governments

and the business community.Since then, the mayor and theschool superintendent havebeen constants – a rarity inVerona’s history – along withsoftware giant Epic’s continu-al growth and Curtis runningthe chamber.

Over the years, some of the

big stories the Press has cov-ered included the constructionof the library and the city hall,and then another library andanother city hall, unionizingin the public and private sec-tor, contentious battles overgrowing subdivisions, grow-ing schools and changingeducational styles, the landingand arrival of Epic, the fightsover big box stores and thefailed consolidation.

It covered a triple homi-cide, a couple of bank rob-beries and a bank shutdown,a couple of tornados, bigbusiness and big buildingprojects. School expansionhas been a regular issueevery few years, as hasgrowth in businesses largeand small, in residential areasand on roads. Big-time ath-letes have made their mark,too, from speedskater CaseyFitzRandolph and swimmerNeil Walker in the Olympicsto NHL player Jack Skille.

But for Holbrook, whatstands out are the little sto-ries that people cared deeplyabout.

“I was always surprised athow people really thought itmattered,” she said. “Peoplesaved stories where the kidswere mentioned and it’s stillin their scrapbook.”

UNG reporter Scott Girardcontributed to this story.

50: Woodward Communications bought Schroeder in 1998Continued from page 4

Readers recall early daysLongtime readers recall

the early days of the Pressas being light on news,and yet there was still adraw that led it to survivelong enough to cover someweighty topics that changedthe face of the city. Thepaper grew to be a watchfuleye and a valued resourcefor a fast-growing city.

“We’ve read it every sin-gle week for years,” saidLinus Stampfl, a Veronanative and former Vil-lage Board member whosefather’s name adorns thehigh school baseball field.“There wasn’t much to it(in the 1960s). … I’m sur-prised that it survived andit grew into what it is.”

Art Cresson got thepaper in the early days butdidn’t pay close attentionuntil he got on the parkboard in 1976. Cresson,

who later became a mayorand is still involved with

the Community Develop-ment Authority, said thepaper fostered a deepercommunity conversation.

“Once we had a news-paper, people started writ-ing letters to the editor andissues were discussed morethan they would have beenotherwise,” he said. “Ithink people became a littlemore aware of what washappening.”

Doreen Stewart movedto Madison with her hus-band, Don, in the mid-1970s, but she’s been asubscriber from the start.She told the Press she’salways enjoyed readingthe newspaper – both smalland without “a lot of news”like the old days, and themore modern version.

“I always enjoyed it,” shesaid. “For as long as we’velived here (in the Madi-

son area), we’ve gotten thepaper.”

The 1966 widening of West Verona Avenue. A Walgreen’s is inplace of these buildings, which include Verona Pharmacy.

An ad from a long-gone restaurant in the 1965 issue.


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Mail, the Capital Times all car-ried Verona news, much of it writ-ten by Alice Kuntsman. And for17 years, there was Emily Elder’sthree-page mimeographed news-letter called the Verona Reminderthat carried ads and light society

news.But Verona needed its own pro-fessional newspaper to be morefully galvanized as a community.

Delany granted that wish, but formost of the time he was involvedwith the newspaper, he was almostcompletely hands-off. He hired ahusband-wife editing team for thefirst several months, then started apartnership with Henry Schroederin April 1966, and when that hap-pened, a local legend was born.

Schroeder edited, wrote andpublished the paper in vari-ous amounts from then until hisretirement in 1998, while Delanyfocused his efforts on Oregon. Hebought out his partner’s share ofSouthwest Suburban Publicationsin 1980, though he kept Delanyemployed on a part-time basis forseveral years afterward. They cre-ated the Fitchburg Star together in1975.

Neither lived long enough to seethe Verona Press turn 50 years old.But it wouldn’t have happenedwithout their efforts.

Delany died in 1999 at age 83,and Schroeder – who kept in touchwith the Press, writing columnsand occasionally letters well afterhis retirement – died in 2013 inArizona at age 84.

Schroeder: Active advocateWhile he was still active, par-

ticularly in the early days, as edi-

tor/publisher, Schroeder was a

passionate advocate for his com-munity, for local business and fortransparency in government. Hegot involved in a variety of wayslocally, from being the chamberpresident and chairing the com-mittee that put on the HometownDays parade to running for countyand state office and serving as thepresident of the state newspaperassociation. He would often opineabout national politics and socialissues, but he pulled no puncheswhen he wrote about local affairs,skewering anyone who he thoughtdeserved it with his sharp wordson the editorial pages and even innews stories.

“Henry is just a wonderful

character,” said former Press edi-tor Deb (Harville) Holbrook, whoheld that title from 1994-1998after starting in the office as a sec-retary. “He was extremely conser-vative and a total skinflint, but healways backed me up.”

At one point, Schroeder plannedon keeping the business in thefamily for the next generation.

He brought his son, Bill, into thefold shortly after Bill graduatedfrom high school. He involvedhim in business meetings and tripsand getting to know not just writ-ing and photography – where Billclearly excelled – but the publish-ing end.

“I graduated in 1982 and went

full-time … pretty much until I left(in 1999),” Bill Schroeder said.

Bill Schroeder applies those les-sons today as the publisher of theStewartville (Minn.) Star, but hehad to find a new community tocall home after his father decidedto sell the group for his retirement.

He told the Press last week that

he had tried to buy the Veronapaper from his dad, but his fatherwanted to keep the group togetherand sell it all at once, and that costmore than he could afford. At thatpoint, it also included papers inFitchburg, Monona and McFar-land.

Local lore has it that Schroederwas willing to sell the newspa-pers to just about anyone as longas it wasn’t Lee Enterprises, whichcontinues to own the WisconsinState Journal and Capital Times.That was what led him to sell hisbusiness to an Iowa-based com-pany in Woodward Communica-tions, which continues to own thePress, Observer, Fitchburg Starand Stoughton Courier Hub today

as Unified Newspaper Group.“He didn’t get along with Lee

Enterprises for various reasons,but mostly because …. he likedthe small business better,” BillSchroeder said. “His impressionof Woodward was more family-oriented than it was big, conglom-erate business.”

Henry certainly knew how tocarry a grudge, but they didn’t lastlong locally, his son said. Therewould be occasional feud withpeople who wanted to spend mon-ey in ways he thought was reck-less – such as a band director whowanted the school board to pay fora band trip to Florida in the 1970s– but “he pretty much got along

with everybody,” Bill said.

Delany: Veteran publisherDelany, meanwhile, stayed on in

a variety of roles after 1980, help-ing to do paste-up of classified ads,with Schroeder supporting himeven while Delany began to losehis ability to work, Holbrook said.

Delany became “the face peoplewould see” at the Observer duringthose days, Bill Schroeder said.

“Butler was getting old,” headded. “He was sharp, but hecouldn’t do the physical part of it.”

But before then, Delany was theone giving Schroeder a break.

An experienced publisher, hehad purchased the Observer in1959 after having owned a news-paper in Poynette and serving asthe plant superintendent at theSauk Prairie Star.

He had been working with news-papers his whole life, according tohis obituary, learning to operate thelinotype at his grandfather’s paper,the Poynette Press, and taking overin 1945 at age 29. He and his wifebought the Observer in 1959, and

when “leading businessmen andcommunity officials” from Vero-na approached him, he agreed tobranch out to a second paper whilekeeping his focus on Oregon.

He hired David and Gabriella“Mickey” Enersen, former FoxLake Representative owners, torun the Press, and they stayed onuntil a big dustup in February 1966forced them out. Robert Anderson,a former Sauk Prairie Star editor/ publisher who had worked withDelany for years, filled in on aninterim basis, and Elder took overas office manager, closing theReminder.

Then came Schroeder, who hadpreviously done public relations

work with CUNA International.

Leadership: Schroeder got involved locally; Delany had worked with papers his whole lifeContinued from page 1

File photo

Henry Schroeder, left, and Butler Delany, right, introduce the Fitchburg Star in1975, while holding up their other publications, the Verona Press and Oregon

Observer.


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park, no industrial parks, noEpic, no Cleary.

The Post Office had justbegun city delivery. Andthere wasn’t even fluoridatedwater or garbage pickup.

But there was finally a

newspaper.After two previous attemptshad failed, local leaderspleaded with Oregon Observ-er publisher Butler Delany toapply his formula here, and itstuck. The arrival of the Vero-na Press heralded the matura-tion of the community, and asthe village, then city grew, thepaper grew along with it.

John Scharer, who movedto Verona in 1936, remem-bers reading the VeronaReminder in the years beforethere was a Verona Press. Thenewsletter had a few ads andwas printed out on mimeo-graph and mailed for free toeveryone.

The Reminder carried bitsof society news and not muchelse – because that was allpeople had needed before.But as the city got bigger,people didn’t all know oneanother anymore.

“We weren’t quite asclose in neighborhoods,” herecalled. “Things were hap-pening a few blocks away,where a few blocks awaywasn’t there before.”

Don Stewart, whose fatherpartnered with William Millerto found the one grocery storethat has survived all of Vero-na’s changes, doesn’t live inVerona anymore, but he is

a regular contributor to the

community’s historical soci-ety and still visits.

His most vivid recollec-tion is how self-contained thecommunity was, and that ithad just started to grow afterWorld War II. It still seemedvery far from the urban worldand very small.

“If you were going to Mad-ison, you dressed up,” he said.

Art Cresson was still newhere in 1965, and he recallsVerona being far more socialand less active at the sametime.

“We used to do morethings with our friends andneighbors than I see peopledo now,” he said. “We’d gettogether with neighbors, playcards, just socialize.”

One example was theVerona Varieties, which

might be considered an early

forerunner to the Verona AreaCommunity Theater. Onlythere were no trained actors.

“A lot of people from thecommunity would get togeth-er and put on these plays,”Cresson said. “My wife wasin a couple of them. Ed Faberhe was in a few, Ken Zingg,he would do the narration.

“It was just a bunch of peo-ple having fun.”

Then and nowVerona was just a different

world 50 years ago.Carnes, with just over 500

employees, was by far thebiggest employer in the com-munity.

Its newly formed schooldistrict had 13 schools, butonly 60 high school gradu-ates. All of its elementaries

– except for the one now

known as Sugar Creek –were one-room schoolhous-es.

Just this month, the districtgraduated 366 students fromits high school, which pullsfrom two middle schools andseven elementaries, most ofwhich have at least 300 stu-dents.

In 1965, Verona had nomunicipal buildings of itsown, other than the watertower pump house. It rentedspace for the village hall,fire station, police stationand library. Even as late as1980, the city was rentingspace at Carnes, where themayor worked at the time.The library and police sta-tion shared room in a formerbank building that would lat-er house a doctor’s office and

liquor store and was finally

torn down in 2005.This month, the city is

finishing new $10.5 million,45,000-square-foot fire sta-tion and has have nearly $30million worth of buildings,including an administration/ police complex and librarythat each cost more than $7

million.Scharer recalls the city juststarting to expand its bordersin the years after World WarII – it had been to that pointbasically confined to the areabetween Marietta and Frank-lin streets, from just south ofthe Paoli Street intersection towhat is now the high school.

Big news in the 1960s wasexpansion of the school dis-trict and the new buildings– including the high schoolin 1968 – that came with theconsolidation, which had togo through a public referen-dum.

Carnes was growing, too,and so was everything else

in Verona. There were twonew churches, a new library,the city’s first industrial parkand the widening of the MainStreet-Verona Avenue inter-section.

There were lots of com-plaints over rising taxes, aplan to establish a countylandfill and of how to stopMadison from growing tooclose. That included the firstdiscussions about possiblymerging the town with thecity.

One of the most memo-rable news items was beforethe Press existed, when firechief Keith Miller – the

owner of Miller and SonsSupermarket – chased down

a burglar in 1961 and tackledhim before the police arrived.He would soon find out thatthe burglar had nitroglycerinin his pocket, which he hadused to blow up a safe.

Big debates includedwhether to fluoridate thewater (which did eventually

happen) and whether to builda combined village build-ing with library and police(which didn’t).

Linus Stampfl, who wentoff to the Navy after graduat-ing and then hopped aroundWisconsin for a few yearsbefore settling back downhere in the 1960s and get-ting married, said Veronawas everything he wanted atthe time – small, familiar andbasically boring.

“Serving in the militaryI got into some really hor-rible places,” he said. “Alittle place like Verona was aplace I wanted to be.”

Stampfl would later serve

on the Village Board, whichdidn’t spend much or domuch in those days, he said.

“That was quite an experi-ence,” he said. “We had nomoney we spent no moneyand we never talked aboutspending money.”

Cresson, too, served onwhat would become theCommon Council, thenbecame mayor in the 1980s.But long before that, he got a

job at the new post office atthe age of 26, and as a result,he got to know almost every-one.

“I felt Verona was sucha welcoming community,”

he said. “I hope Verona willcontinue to be that way.”

1965: One-room schoolhouses, village space was all rented, debates over fluoridationContinued from page 1

Photo submitted

With no other community pool, Fireman’s Park beach was a popular hangout in the 1960s.


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8 - The Verona Press - 50th Anniversary - July 2, 2015

Happy 50th Anniversary

Verona Press

210 S. Main Street • 845-6478

a d n o = 4 1 4 1 1 0 - 0 1

Miller & Sons

Has Been Serving

The Verona Area

For More Than

100

YEARS

2015 vp 50th anniversary

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