From the pages of the Ridgeway Journal dated January 14 and January 28, 1926:
Mrs. J. J. Reed held a “vanishing luncheon” which included 5 guests as part of a fundraiser for the lyceum course. Each guest paid fifty cents for the luncheon and agreed to host a luncheon themselves for four guests, each paying 50 cents. “So the number of guests at each luncheon decreases each time by one although the number of luncheons increases. In the end, 325 people will have been entertained”. They hoped to raise $163.00 for the Lyceum fund if the chain wasn’t broken.
A thirteen year old boy, Vernal Killough, accidentally shot himself in the foot while hunting on the John Leazenby farm west of town. Fortunately, Mr. Leazenby found him only a few minutes later and he was taken to a St. Joe hospital on the early morning train the next day for the shot to be removed. He was recovering nicely at the last report.
Hiram Scott sold 10 spring pigs at the St. Joseph market for over $353. He’d had two sows that produced 18 pigs and selling all of them gained hime $748 which would be over $13,339 in today’s money.
The Journal editor and owner Bill E. Schwarzel wrote several items about what was going on at the newspaper. The offices were repainted by local painter Herschel Goodwin over a span of four weeks as the “old home paper had to come off the press on time”. All the equipment had to be pulled out from the walls, then put back so that the paper could be printed.
Another item reminded people that while the Journal always appreciated news submissions, it couldn’t handle them after 6 pm on Tuesdays “because we have but one linotype and it must finish its work each week on Wednesdays in order to get the old home paper on the press in time to routes out of Ridgeway.” “If more of our good friends that have news items for us would remember to bring them in on Tuesday of each week, how happy everyone would be.”
In another item, the editor lamented that “everyone has colds” but he still had to get the paper out even though his staff and family were out sick and two of his employees had quit, but “such is life in a print show.”. He then asked if “some of our good friends” who could help “while the editor gave his cold a rest everything would be lovely.”
