Spearfish Lake Record-Herald

Spearfish Lake Record-Herald is the weekly (and only) newspaper for the town of Spearfish Lake. For many years it was run by George Webb and subsequently by Mike McMahon.

Abraham Sanderson founded the Spearfish Lake Record in 1888. Abraham's son Stanley took over the paper in 1904 and soon bought out the Spearfish Lake Herald, combining the two. He managed the paper until 1929. Homer's son died in 1944 and none of his three daughters were interested in the paper. Homer died in August 1979. ^AF11

For more than a century the Spearfish Lake Record-Herald had been housed in a drafty old wooden two-story building on the corner of Second Street and Central Avenue in downtown Spearfish Lake. In the early days, when the paper was published there in the "hot type" era of Linotype machines and on-site printing presses, the building was bursting at the seams, but when the paper converted to "cold type" (modern offset printing), it started to empty out. Later, the printing operation was split off and moved out, and the building became really empty. Part of the second floor became an apartment for the junior reporter.

Eventually, it became obvious that the heating bills for the big building were excessive, and, when Marlin Computers moved to a larger site, in late 1999 or early 2000 the paper moved to their old building, which had previously been a pizza joint. Mike missed the smells of hot type and newsprint that had lingered on in the old building, and didn't find the faint smells of mozzarella and pepperoni a fair trade as far as he was concerned.^BB16

The newspaper would frequently hire young reporters fresh from college. Mike McMahon was one that stayed on in Spearfish Lake, while many others moved on, some to prominent positions in the industry. Other young cubs include Andy Bairnsfether, Pat Varner, Brenda Hodunk, and Matt Peckanen. The most recently named Junior Reporter was Carla Stanton who took the job in early 2001.^BB16 In Autmn 2004 the paper was without a junior reporter as the previous one, Lindeman, was so bad Mike had to fire him after only three months.^SU7 Mike asked his daughter Susan to take on the role part-time until he could get another full timer in.^SU9

A partial listing of employees includes:

Joyce Berlin, typesetter before Carrie

Carrie Evachevski, typesetter, later Social Editor

Virginia Meyers, Social Editor before Carrie

Anissa Hodges, Sportswriter

Harry Bailey, Advertising Manager before Kirsten

Kirsten Langenderfer, Advertising Manager

Sally Szczerowski Ad Manager after Kirsten

Debbie Elkstalker Assistant Ad Manager, later Ad Manager after Sally

Jannine Wychek, Bookkeeper

George Lindquist, Weekly column on local history

Dean Hoffman, Printing Manager in 1979

Jennifer Evachevski used to come in and run the Saxmeyer (bundling machine) whilst at school. Even now when she's married, she will still come in when the paper is short-staffed. She taught Brenda how to use the machine when Brenda joined the staff.