By: Jane Schuchardt
Editor’s Note: This continues a series of articles celebrating pride in our town and its surroundings shown through the experience of residents, businesses, and organizations.
Though the newspaper ink is faded from her fingertips, The Elgin Review (ER) is tattooed on her heart.
“I started in 1996 just filling in,” Bernice (Bernie) Siems reminisced from her Elgin home. “Jim and Julie Dickerson (former owners of the ER) were neighbors and asked me to help out some Wednesday mornings putting inserts in the paper.”
Now, nearly three decades later, Siems will be celebrated with an open house at the Elgin Community Center Wednesday afternoon July 16th. The event is hosted by ER co-publishers and owners since 2007, Dennis and Lynell Morgan.
“Retirement,” Siems called it, though the Morgans know they can call on her for special projects here and there, or to deliver one of her delectable, homemade peach pies when the fruit gets trucked here from Colorado in August.
She’s stepping away from long Wednesday mornings on her feet stuffing inserts, bundling newspapers, and affixing labels so ER subscribers get the local news in a timely, comprehensive manner. Sometimes inserts can number three or four, she said, always including the ad for Dean’s Market, sometimes fliers from area medical establishments, and more.
“It’s about time,” Siems quipped knowing her 89th birthday comes up in October this year. “I’ve been asking Dennis to find a replacement for quite a while now.” Truth be told, the Morgan’s would likely say there’s no one quite like Bernie.
“Bernie has been a part of our ‘team’ since the day we arrived in Elgin,” Dennis Morgan said. “For the role she played here, no one could have done it better. And, for that, we will be forever grateful.”
She’s been on call every Wednesday morning when the newspaper comes by truck from the printing press in Iowa, generally around 9:00 am. She’s on her feet two-plus hours on the long, east-west counter that runs about half the length of the ER building, which has been in existence since 1916. “Dennis kept telling me to take a break, sit down for 10 minutes,” Siems recounted. “Well, maybe five.” After all, she had to get the string ready, get out the tubs and bags, and organize the labels, do the stuffing, and do it all just right.
That’s the kind of person Elgin’s Bernie is – dependable, hard-working, seldom ill or away, and fun. “Some of these Wednesdays we’d have a lot of fun eating cookies or brownies. I really enjoyed it,” she said with a touch of sadness sweeping over her sincere face. “I’ll miss the camaraderie.”
One thing that won’t end is Siems’ ambassadorship for the ER. “Oh, it makes the town,” Siems said about our local newspaper, the only weekly in Antelope County reporting news on primarily one town.
“It’s important to know what’s going on at our churches, schools, community center, and for community events,” she said, and to the young people – “There’s more details than what you find on your phone. Support the ER. SUBSCRIBE.”
Siems wanted readers to know that the ER, founded in 1897 and likely the oldest business still in operation in Elgin, does more than put out a quality newspaper each week. “It’s amazing what goes on in that little office,” she said listing printing of billing statements for businesses, invitations, postcards, and more. “That Dennis and Lynell are very talented at their job.”
Though she won’t require thorough washing of dirty fingers after handling newspapers each Wednesday, she definitely keeps her hands in Elgin community activities, a place she’s called home since her husband Warren (deceased) and her moved to town in 1993. She’ll continue to host the Tuesday and Thursday morning coffee klatch at her Elgin Community Christian Church, hang out at the Elgin Community Center a couple times a week, and put together puzzles at the center and at home, the more complex the better.
…see more at this week’s Elgin Review.
