About SIEA
Organized in the mid-1890s, the Southern Illinois Editorial Association is the state's second oldest press group. Although originally confined to the southern third of the state, the group's membership roster now includes newspapers as far north as Champaign.
Objectives are to "promote the interests of the Press of Southern Illinois and promote good fellowship among its members." The organization has supported Southern Illinois University Carbondale's journalism program since its birth in 1947 and provides substantial scholarship help to SIUC journalism students.
The association is headquartered in the Media & Communication Resources office on the SIUC campus. The address is Mailcode 6519, 1010 S. Elizabeth St., Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901. The phone number is 618/453-2276.
SIEA History
By Pete Brown
Written Fall 1990
The Southern Illinois Editorial Association dates to 1896, supposedly, but I can't find solid corroboration. We assembled a list of former presidents about 20 years ago, and the earliest one we could come up with was J.H. Scott, of the old Carbondale Free Press. He served a term in 1903-1904, and Edgar A. Davie, publisher of the Anna Talk, succeeded him.
The first SIEA prexy with ties to the modern era -- as far as I know -- was W.J. Seil, president three different times in the early 1900s (1904-1905, 1908-1909 and 1910-11). Seil, publisher of the Grayville Mercury, was the great-grandfather of Pat Seil, now associate editor of Wayne County Press, in Fairfield. Pat Seil was the fourth generation editor of the (now) Grayville Mercury-Independent when he and his mother sold it in 1988 to Dean Bunting, Albion Journal-Register. (Six months later, Bunting sold his properties to Hollinger's American Publishing Co. group.)
The organization's objectives remain pretty much as set forth in the 1909 Constitution: " ... to promote the interests of the Press of Southern Illinois and promote good fellowship among its members." That constitution, by the way, is the earliest version I've ever found. The SIEA's Committee on Constitution and By-Laws adopted it at a meeting in Effingham on August 16, 1909.
The document limited membership to "duly accredited representatives of newspapers of general circulation, published in Illinois on or south of the main line of the Big Four railroad."
A 1920 revision expanded eligibility somewhat, welcoming to the SIEA's bosom "those connected with the editing and publishing of newspapers and those connected with the trade houses with which those members deal. Territory shall consist of Southern Illinois, south of Springfield."
SIEA dues were $2 in 1909. In 1920, they were still $2.
The earliest accounts of an SIEA meeting that I have in the organization files are those of 1909. About 50 editors and publishers gathered at East St. Louis on a September Friday morning and boarded a special car of the Illinois Traction System -- "The Bloomington" -- for a two-day "outing" to Springfield, Decatur, Bloomington, Peoria, Lincoln and back.
At Peoria they ate at the Creve Coeur club, a banquet described by the Gillespie News (probably S.P. Preston) as "one of the finest ever held in the state". They visited the General Insane Asylum at Bartonville ("Greatest public institution in the state," Peoria Journal) and checked out the Decatur Herald, one of "only two" newspapers in the town.
One of the SIEA visitors described the Herald shop: "This newspaper has better quarters than (any) in St. Louis or Chicago. They have an Associated Press franchise. A new twenty-four thousand dollar press is just being installed. They have a battery of six linotypes and one monotype. Everything about the press room and composing room and the offices is as clean as a pin as neat as a drawing room."
The only thing about Decatur that put off this editor (the clip is unattributed) was the fact that it was dry. "Decatur is the biggest town we were ever in that was trying the prohibition experiment," he said. "A dry town in the corn belt is among the inconsistencies and incongruities of this age ... Decatur will have to sane up."
The next year -- 1910 -- the SIEA editors took another ITC trip, this time to Springfield. The Ewing Reporter's delegate said the evening banquet "consisted almost entirely of food," of which editors "are passionately fond."
Upon returning home next day -- "to live on oatmeal with clinkers in it until next spring" -- the editor (R.G. Everts?) reflected:
"The country editor is not, as a rule, a bad fellow. He may not do right all the time, but he generally manages to strike a pretty fair average. He goes through the motion of living solely for the public welfare. He sometimes collects a dollar or two and then he gets away for a little jaunt like this. And when the last day wears out, and it gets along towards the shank of the evening, when the last bit of copy has been written, the last form closed, the printer cussed for the last time, when the paste in the old tin dipper has soured and the editor has wiped his honest hands on the snow white office towel and climbed the high board fence which separates the somber present from the mysterious ultimatum, his only regret will be that he cannot give his readers a write-up of his journey."
During the '20s, '30s and early 1940s, the SIEA perked along with annual membership rosters of 100 or so, at times rising to 150. The group met twice each year, and summer outings on Mississippi River packet boats became familiar attractions. In mid-1938, Mascoutah publisher and printing magnate Arthur D. Jenkins began putting out "The Illinois Editor," a 32-page magazine with some national advertising. He said in the Feb. 15, 1939 issue that the publication had been "started last May by the dynamic Southern Illinois Editorial Association." He reported that the Illinois Press Association's executive committee "decided (in January) to make this magazine the official publication of the IPA."
Sometime in the 1930s (I'm guessing) the SIEA began communicating to its members by means of "The Egyptian Editor, Official Bulletin of the Southern Illinois Editorial Association." It would appear, from the few issues that I have in the files, that it appeared infrequently and was put together by various members in their own shops.
The May 1948 edition ("No. 1" for the year), announced resumption of the "famous summer steamboat cruises," with a weekend trip to Hannibal, Mo. "Oldtimer" Howe Morgan, publisher of the Sparta News-Plaindealer, lauded the move. "We'll enjoy the fine meals ... we'll hobnob together in close confinement and talk shop for hours," he wrote. "No doubt there will be some card games and perhaps a few more games of chance. We'll dance to the tune of the orchestra and sleep the sleep of the just ... If I had the persuasive power of a Billy Sunday I'd convince every newspaper neophyte in Southern Illinois that he should be on board ... "
By that time, membership in the group has slumped below 100. The treasury held $300.86 as of April 24, 1948 (right after the spring meeting), which would compare with about $40,000 -- including scholarship investments -- today.
The group began meeting more and more frequently at Southern Illinois University, newly freed of its old "Normal" school status and beginning to flex some public relations muscle.
In 1951, SIU President Delyte W. Morris hired William H. (Bill) Lyons as the school's public relations chief. One of Lyon's first moves was to begin cementing relations with downstate community journalists and their organization, the SIEA. As a consequence he added dozens of newspapers to the old SIU Information Service "exchange list." He quickly became a sort of ex-officio secretary manager for the SIEA and on Oct. 10, 1952, he mailed Vol. 1 No. 1 of a revived "Editors Newsletter." He wrote it (except for school vacations and other annoyances) every week.
In June of 1955 he changed the name to the NewsLITTER (my caps) and 10 years later he added the motto "Carving New Trails in the Jungles of Journalism" to its flag. That came from a "paen of praise" dashed off by Karl Monroe, of the Collinsville Herald, for a resolution honoring Lyons in the spring of 1965: " ... the said Bill Lyons has, by his editorship of the SIEA Newslitter, carved new trails in the jungles of journalism and furnished the membership with a wealth of information calculated to make the practitioners of journalism in Southern Illinois seem almost legendary to each other in their own times ... " Monroe would say later that the line -- never intended for publication -- was the "most read thing" he ever wrote.
The Newslitter became the SIEA's trunk grapevine and Lyons and his SIU office became the fuse for a new SIEA membership explosion. Membership blossomed in the 1950s and climbed well over 100 again in the 1960s. By then the organization had begun to meet each spring at SIU. A late fall or winter meeting was moved to late summer, becoming the Winter-Meeting-in-August.
Virtually all members of the SIEA also have belonged to the Illinois Press Association and many of the IPA's presidents also served over the years as president of the statewide organization. Among those who've held the dual posts in recent years are Charles Mills, Vandalia Leader-Union; William (Bill) Morgan, Sparta News-Plaindealer; Bob Voris, Waterloo Republican; Karl Monroe, Collinsville Herald; Robert Best, Sullivan News-Progress; Tom Phillips, Pana News-Palladium; Jim Roberts, Fairbury Blade; Jerry Reppert, Anna Gazette-Democrat; Charles Jones, Metropolis Planet; and Byron Tracy, Robinson Daily News.
Bill Lyons retired in 1973, and Pete Brown, who became director of the SIU University News Service in 1974, began writing the Newslitter and handling SIEA meetings. In 1975, the SIEA elected its first woman president, Norine Dalkert Hoffman. Hoffman, publisher of the old Waterloo Times, would later become the SIEA's permanent treasurer. In that post she handles more than $40,000 in scholarship funds, all for awards to students at SIU. Major SIEA scholarships are endowed as memorials to Curtis Small and Daisy Seright, late editor and publisher of the Harrisburg Daily Register; Karl Monroe; Bill Lyons; and Oldham Paisley. Following the death of Charles Feirich -- former SIEA president and longtime member -- his wife, Mildred, gave the organization $5,000 to support column writing awards in the annual SIEA Better Newspaper Contest.
The SIEA put a distinctive spin on newspaper competition when it began its own contest. With the exception of column writing, editorials, community service, photographs and feature writing, newspaper editors have no choice as to what's judged. SIEA headquarters (now the SIUC Media & Communication Resources department) picks two weeks out of the year and "pulls" newspapers from its exchange for those two periods. Judges -- sometimes from the organization itself, other times from outside press associations or journalism schools -- comb through issues from those two weeks and rate efforts ranging from local news to advertising.
Bill Lyons, architect of the modern SIEA, died in June 1984, and with him -- in a sense -- went some of the SIEA's organizational glue. Since then, many other oldtime SIEA people have died, too. Newspaper acquisitions in Southern Illinois have virtually wiped out the ranks of family-held papers in the region and resulting ownership homogenization has thinned SIEA membership somewhat. But among the stalwarts remaining -- and the SIEA still maintains a roster of about 100 members -- are some of the state's oldest newspapers.
It's been years -- four decades, at least -- since the SIEA drew a line across a state map and said "members have to live south of this." Jim Roberts, who owned the Fairbury Blade (Cornbelt Press) empire before selling it in August of 1990, makes the 230-miles-plus trek from Fairbury regularly for SIEA functions.