By Eleanor
La Prade
Delaware State News
DOVER — After almost 50 years, Bill Dodd retired from work on Thursday.
Delaware State News
DOVER — After almost 50 years, Bill Dodd retired from work on Thursday.
Mr. Dodd recalled starting work
at the Delaware State News on a Wednesday — Sept. 4, 1963.
He stuck with it for 49 years, eight months and six days.
He stuck with it for 49 years, eight months and six days.
Mr. Dodd’s last position at the
paper was “store collector,” picking up sales invoices from local businesses.
But he’s held a range of jobs in the company and over the years he’s seen the
industry — and the world — dramatically change.
The year Mr. Dodd started work
at the paper, The Beatles were number one on the charts with “I Want to Hold
Your Hand” and stamps cost 5 cents.
He had been an office boy in Milton, just back from active duty with the Delaware National Guard in Fort Knox, Ky., when his brother-in-law in Lewes gave him a job at the paper.
He was a “ bank boy,” correcting galleys of lead type at the newspaper’s small office on North Street.
It was nine days before his 21st birthday.
“Then I moved into building classifi ed pages for the paper,” he said. “Then I started working building ads
He had been an office boy in Milton, just back from active duty with the Delaware National Guard in Fort Knox, Ky., when his brother-in-law in Lewes gave him a job at the paper.
He was a “ bank boy,” correcting galleys of lead type at the newspaper’s small office on North Street.
It was nine days before his 21st birthday.
“Then I moved into building classifi ed pages for the paper,” he said. “Then I started working building ads
In 1967, the Delaware State News moved to a building on Webbs Lane.
That was about the time that the company ditched linotype machines, which cast text in hot metal, and moved to offset printing.
It was a big change.
“Hot metal was heavy work. Everything was written upside down and backwards, and that’s how you learn to read,” he said.
At the new office, he made ads and then he moved into the copy camera room and then the plate room.
“The first processed color that we ran on the press, I put the negatives together,” he said.
Eventually, Mr. Dodd started working in the circulation department. For a while, he was a district manager — and he still still runs into the now grown-up paper boys who used to report to him.
Up until last year, he worked in “Special Projects,” which included setting up delivery of sister publications Milford Chronicle, Harrington Journal and Outside the Oval NASCAR weekend magazines.
“Then I moved into the stores so I didn’t have to work nights. Because I was in that job, I was always possibly getting called,” he said.
In 2006, Mr. Dodd moved into the newest Delaware State News location: a two- story building on Galaxy Drive at the other end of town.
Co-workers filled the conference room there on Thursday to celebrate with Mr. Dodd, to reminisce and share in a luncheon.
“I’ll miss the people,” Mr. Dodd said. “This is going to be a new challenge.”
But he’s excited.
This weekend, Mr. Dodd is on vacation in Lancaster County, Pa.
“I want to do some things before I can’t do them,” he said. “I’m going to do a lot of traveling, I want to play in my yard. I got a list around my house. It’ll take me a couple years.”
Staff writer Eleanor La Prade can be reached at 741-8242 or elaprade@newszap.com.
