Sun Herald celebrates 130 years of delivering the news to South Mississippi

Sept. 28--In the 130 years the Sun Herald has served as "the paper of the people" it has gone from a trip to space to living in cyberspace.

In 1970, Astronaut Fred Haise, who had worked in the newsroom in high school and college, took a miniaturized Herald with him aboard Apollo 13. Since 1995, the Sun Herald has published in print and cyberspace, expanding its reach from beyond the Mississippi Coast to a global audience.

"It's all about local news," Sun Herald Publisher Glen Nardi said. "If you want to know what's going on on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, whether you're here or in Clinton, Mississippi, it's available to you now.

"We can deliver news anywhere, any time. Local news is what it's all about -- it's just delivered on multiple platforms."

On Oct. 4, 1884, founder George Washington Wilkes cajoled an aged crotchety hand press into printing out the first issue of The Biloxi Herald -- a name soon changed to reflect broader coverage. SunHerald.com was added in 1995 to take the news-gathering organization from the printed word to the fast-paced, ever-changing digital world.

Wilkes borrowed $500 for his iffy venture, backed only by a belief in future growth of the sleepy fishing village of Biloxi and the surrounding coastal and piney woods counties of South Mississippi. The veteran newsman wasn't thinking of fame or famous people or that someday his creation would receive the highest journalism honor, the Pulitzer Gold Medal.

He just wanted to publish a worthy newspaper. "The Herald's ambition," Wilkes said, "is to be the paper of the people, to have their confidence and to be in touch with them."

With wife Laurie and short-time partner M.B. Thompson, the tiny staff worked by oil-lamp light to set letters, ink pages and crank out 50 copies an hour. The eight-page issue was a Saturday weekly -- or "weakly" as Wilkes himself mused.

That first year, several hundred residents shelled out $2 for 52 issues. Readership steadily rose as the Coast grew and the newspaper reflected the times -- adding telegraph service, then wire services and now the Internet through Sun Herald MultiMedia.

'Heralders' inform

A fascinating collection of "Heralders," as they were once called, have passed through the doors of assorted newspaper offices, plants and bureaus, including a Mississippi first -- a capital bureau in Jackson. These reporters, publishers, photographers, editors, columnists, editorial writers and others who performed the essentials understood -- then and now -- the necessity of a local newspaper.

"Any time you have an informed electorate -- and that's the role the Herald has serveed -- it helps the development and growth of a community," said Judy Isbell. She was a Herald reporter in the mid-1980s and now studies the effects of the changing newspaper environment as a Ph.D. student in the Southern Miss School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"Through words and strong visual journalism, the newspaper can tell the people so many things about their community and their lives within that community. This newspaper has worked well with helping the Coast reflect back on its better self, finding the humanity of living every day."

News-gathering changes

Will Rogers' famous quip, "All I know is what I read in the newspaper" took on local meaning in 1935 when the humorist's appearance in Gulfport was announced in the Herald. Today, the once-popular Rogers quote is foreign to a generation of news consumers who turn to smartphones and computers for news, including the electronic versions of this newspaper.

News gathering has changed beyond any of the wildest imaginings of Laurie and George Wilkes and the children they taught to continue the family business. Following a national trend spurred by the increasing costs of running a newspaper, the Wilkes family sold to The State Record Co. in 1968. In 1986, the paper was sold again to the Knight Ridder Corp. Knight Ridder ushered in the digital era with the launch of newspaper websites across the company in 1995.

The digital edition in 2005 became a key source of information on what was happening after Hurricane Katrina. People who couldn't get information about what had happened in South Mississippi from any other news source turned to SunHerald.com, pushing its readership to 1.2 million page views a day at its height.

Today, Sun Herald is owned by McClatchy Newspapers with the digital role expanding from just republished newspaper stories to breaking news online with photo, video and other multimedia assets not found in the printed word.

"The Sun Herald continues to play a relevant, important role," Isbell said.

"Just look at Katrina and the even-more-recent DMR scandal. In the aftermath of the nation's worst disaster, resources were consolidated to publish a paper free for anyone. If the Sun Herald hadn't pursued the Department of Marine Resources' graft, the taxpayers would still be being fleeced."

Recorder of history

The weekly Biloxi Herald changed to a daily in 1898; added Gulfport to the masthead in 1909; added a morning paper, The South Mississippi Sun, in 1972; and finally in 1986 combined the morning Sun and afternoon Herald to create the Sun Herald. That's its name today, although longtime readers still simply call it The Herald.

Thirteen decades of weekly and daily editions, along with nearly two decades of one reveal how the Coast has developed, changed, suffered and recovered. A look into 130 years of sports and features provides slices of life otherwise forgotten. Photographs freeze moments in time, such as the return of a fallen soldier from Iraq.

In the last 20 years, those images have expanded to include video, long-form storytelling and galleries of photos.

What you read today and what you read in old editions create what can best be described as a continuous "history book." Coast historian Charles L. Sullivan describes the Sun Herald as "the No. 1 repository of our local history."

Sports, politics, corruption, births, deaths, growth, slumps, marriages, fashion, innovations, crime, businesses, local movers and shakers, environment and governmental changes, celebrations and natural disasters continue to be covered.

The answers to how the Coast reacted to the Great Depression, the JFK assassination, the Cuban missile crisis, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are found in Sun Herald's pages. So are local matters, such as the 1920s seawall, the Sherry 1987 murders, legalized gambling and the continuing 2010 Gulf oil spill.

A bonus of the modern age is those interested in history, family research and local trends can access old and new pages in public library microfilm, or through such digital technologies as websites that feature keyword searches of old news pages. Online subscriptions also have come of age at SunHerald.com.

Herald's early years

Wilkes, however, in his first decade did not even have the luxury of telegraphs for getting the news. He copied stories from national and regional newspapers, depended on the community to bring him local items and augmented those with scientific news, advice for women, chapters of fiction.

The Coast of 1884 had 22,000 people -- about {0th of today's population -- living in tiny lumber communities or small coastal towns. Coast seafood pioneers were in the early stages of finding ways to harvest the abundant shrimp and oysters, and virgin yellow-pine forests were becoming export.

No automobiles, no electricity, no telephones. Trains, horses and ferries were the main modes of transport, and 50 years would pass before one long beachfront road connected from Bay St. Louis to Pascagoula.

Wilkes, a Princeton, Ind., native, moved South in 1877 in his mid-20s. He set up shop in Biloxi after first working for The Democrat Star in Pascagoula, where he met and married Laurie.

As change happened, the Herald recorded it, but the contents of the first four years is unknown. An 1888 fire claimed all the issues and the Herald building itself. Wilkes believed his $1,000 insurance policy would buy a new press until he learned the policy was owned by a wildcatter who had fled. Again he borrowed money.

Several years later, another fire struck, followed by a yellow fever epidemic that sent the elder Wilkeses to bed. The tiny staff still published, even if the papers had to be fumigated before delivery.

The 1890s, however, ended on a good note, with Gulfport incorporating in 1898 and the Wilkes going daily, except Sundays.

The family carries on

In 1902, Wilkes, now 51, spread around the family credit by putting on the masthead the name of his wife and three sons, Eugene, Walter and Charles.

"We seldomly blow our own horn or throw bouquets at the family," the newspaper explained when it made a major plant expansion to Gulfport for its 2,400 readers, who were now paying 15 cents for a week's subscription. "But it has been said that the Herald covers the county like a wet blanket. This is not so. It covers it with an atmosphere of cheer, courage and defense. It covers the county even as a hen doth cover her chickens."

The Wilkes patriarch, described as "courageous, fearless, opinionated" and "a worker in every movement for development of the Coast" died in 1915.

The steadfast Laurie, who has rarely received credit for her role as a Herald founder, died in 1928. At the time, the three sons were listed as publishers. Charles and Walter died by the early 1940s, leaving Eugene to run the Herald, along with the third generation of Wilkeses.

When State Record bought out the remaining Wilkeses in 1968, the time-saving introduction of cold type and computers, a Sunday edition and local editorial pages were among the changes it brought. But the biggest change of all was a new plant built on the dividing line between Biloxi and Gulfport.

Less than a year after the sale, Hurricane Camille leveled coastal downtowns and put water in the Herald presses. State Record and the beleaguered Herald staff found ingenious ways to continue printing a paper, handed out free, and to lead the Coast in rebuilding by constructing the new DeBuys Road plant sooner than planned.

The Sun Herald was sold in 1986 to the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain. That company was at the helm in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rampaged across the Coast, unimaginably worse than Camille.

The newspaper again handed out its papers for free and again found ingenious ways to help a ravaged Coast recover from the nation's worst natural disaster. The most innovative was telling the Coast's story online at SunHerald.com. Through its digital pages, readers could read city-by-city damage reports, find out about deaths, find out where food, ice and other necessities were being distributed -- and how local, state and national leaders planned to help South Mississippi rebuild.

If summing up 130 years of service for the newspaper they birthed, G.W. Wilkes and sons would need little alteration to their 50th-anniversary observation:

"The Herald has gone through two conflagrations, two wars, a yellow fever epidemic, many storms, liquor, prohibition, repeal, depression and prosperity ... The Herald is one of the oldest business firms on the Coast."

Kat Bergeron, who specializes in Gulf Coast history, is retired from the Sun Herald. Reach her at BergeronKat@gmail.com or c/o Sun Herald, P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi MS 39535-4567.

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(c)2014 The Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.)

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