Editorship started by sweeping behind presses

Bill Lewis still likes to read his Tribune while at his rolltop desk in his study at home in Sudden Valley.

Former Tribune editor Bill Lewis began his career hauling newspapers in a wagon -- for 10 cents a load.
     Surrounded by the memorabilia of a lifetime, it's easy for Bill Lewis to associate objects with people and experiences.
     Fondly reminiscing about his "70 Years on Front Street," (the title to his biographical book) Lewis said the people he dealt with during a lifetime at the Tribune made all the difference.
     "Being young, I was impressed by many people," Lewis said. Names roll off his tongue as fast as tongue twisters -- early Lynden mayor Ed Edson, Pratt Surrier of First National Bank, Paul Breen of Farmer's Mercantile, Jack Spaan of North Washington Implement Company and Lynden Department Store founder W. H. Waples, "a real individualist, like J.C. Penney or Fred Meyer."
     Added to the group are Irwin LeCocq, Sr., Dr. Ted Rowe, Fred Polinder, Sr., Hank Jansen, Jim VanAndel and others.
     Lewis has rooms of his well-appointed Sudden Valley home filled with Tribune memories -- type cases, cameras, plaques and photos. He also has his father's Tribune desk.
     Lewis is indebted to his father, Sol Lewis, publisher and editor of the Tribune from 1914 to 1953, for a lifetime in the publishing business.
     From the time he was a small boy, Lewis was groomed for a career at the Tribune. "I was brainwashed by the time I was five," he said fondly.
     At age eight, Lewis made the seven-block trek from his home at 107 Front Street to the Tribune office downtown, delivering aged copies of the newspaper into his coaster wagon for "recycling" at the plant. Upon arrival, Lewis was paid 10 cents per load by Tribune bookkeeper Gertrude Wolfe.
     Two years later the pace picked up.
     "I didn't like picking strawberries," Lewis laughed, referring to a two-week stint working for Oscar Sheets. "I asked Otto Francis, the foreman of the press, if I could be the printer's devil, sweeping and emptying the trash.
     "I'd had a job already at the Liberty Theater, so I was an experienced sweeper by then," he said.
     After that, Lewis worked almost non-stop at the Tribune, except for four years in journalism at University of Washington and his military service during World War II.
     "As soon as I could drive the car -- a 1936 Ford -- I was selling ads," Lewis remembered. He recounted early embarassments selling ads in dress and beauty shops in Bellingham. Ads ran 40 cents per inch then.
     After his father's death in 1953, Lewis assumed the editorship, leaving much of the business dealings to younger brother Julian, who had joined the family firm by then.
     Lewis took some strong editorial stands in his tenure as Tribune editor, most notably a 1981 castigation of a city ordinance banning drinking and dancing.
     Still "computer illiterate," Lewis laughed that he could still set type, if it were ever needed.
     "My dad was a stickler for accuracy. There weren't very many mistakes," he said.
     The technological changes alone over the 20th century would have his father reeling. More importantly, would his father, the venerated Sol Lewis, approve of the direction the Tribune has taken over the years?
     "Yes, he'd be so proud. Newspapermen of his vintage would be amazed at all the changes," Lewis said.