Indiana University School of Journalism

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B.J. Weesner’s 1951 degree didn’t start her career. She grew up working in her family’s newspaper, which she still edits and publishes today. She keeps the old linotype machine in the back of her shop.

Betty “B.J.” Weesner, BA’51, went to school when journalism was still journalism. She recalls this gem, for example, which likely is no longer part of the writing instructions at Ernie Pyle Hall: “Be brief. Make your stories like a woman’s skirt. Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting.”

And this one: “You do not ‘hold’ meetings. You only ‘hold’ with your hands.”

But while Weesner may be proudly old school, she’s far from old-fashioned. She’s still editor and publisher of the Danville, Ind., Republican, and she puts out the paper with digital cameras and digital production. Don’t, in fact, think of her as “old” at all.

“There’s always something new,” she says, by way of explaining what motivates her after more than seven decades in the business. “And I guess I’m just nosy enough to keep having fun doing it. I enjoy people.”

Wait, seven decades? Weesner’s journalism career started long before she graduated from IU, she explains.

“I’ve been at The Republican all my life,” she says. “I was born into it. I have printer’s ink in my blood.”

Her father, Edward “Pug” Weesner, who started as a linotype operator at the paper in the 1920s, soon became owner and president — and she started reporting and writing school news for $1 a week in the fourth grade.

She says her dad’s news philosophy may be the reason The Republican is actually gaining circulation when so many other bigger papers are losing customers.

Courtesy photo

Weesner’s father, Ed "Pug" Weesner, used the linotype machine for years. B.J. Weesner said her father’s commitment to community may be why The Repulican has survived and is gaining in circulation.

“We are a community paper,” she says. “When Lindbergh soloed the Atlantic, a man asked my father why there wasn’t something in the paper about it, and my dad said, ‘He doesn’t live in Hendricks County.’ And that’s why I think we might survive a little longer than some of the dailies. We are concerned only with the local news.”

Despite growing up in the newsroom, Weesner says her time at IU provided lessons she still uses every day.

“More important to me is what I learned about life outside the curriculum,” she says. “I learned to be more tolerant. I learned to organize my time to better advantage. I learned to make my own decisions. I learned, and I’m still learning.”

There’s one thing she has no plans to learn, however.

“I’ve gone from hand-set headlines through linotype, photo typesetting and now computers,” she says. “The only thing in the shop I was afraid to try was the metal saw. I liked my fingers.”

Reported by Russell Jackson BA’83, who is based in West Hollywood, Calif.

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