Earlier this week, Hank and Rowdy Beneke came into the Pampa News office to gain a little insight into one of the world’s oldest forms of media.
As part of their homeschool curriculum, the Beneke brothers have visited many of Pampa’s historical landmarks and county offices. Earlier this year, they had the opportunity to meet Mayor DeFever and sit through a city commissioners meeting, learning the ins and outs of the operations of the place we call home.
We at the Pampa News were thrilled to show them around our facility, guiding them through the doors that not many people can say they have crossed. From my own personal experience, I never realized just how massive this building really was until I started working here over a year ago, so it was fun for me to see the surprise not only on their faces, but for their parents as well!
They walked past the giant, towering rolls of paper as they made their way into the printing room where they were able to see the first step in the printing process in action.
They watched as the massive printer spat out a large metal sheet with images of the newspaper barely visible and were curious as to what the next step was.
We then took them to the press, a monster of a machine with an intimidating number of components and moving parts, and although they were unable to see the machine itself in action, impressed them and their parents nonetheless.
Our publisher, ReDonn Woods, explained to them how those metal sheets are put onto the rollers in their corresponding colored units and how the mix of ink and water and a multitude of other factors are what creates the images on the paper.
I showed them a printed paper where the ink hadn’t been adjusted yet and let the brothers look with the magnifying glass at the small crosshair at the bottom of the page to see if they could tell which color needed to be moved on the machine, and of course their young eyes could spot it in no time.
After giving a brief history of the building and answering questions, we brought them into my editorial department where I was in the middle of working on the Halloween edition and showed them a little bit of what it takes to put together a newspaper.
All of us at the Pampa News want to thank Amanda and Justin Beneke for including us in your boys’ journey of knowledge and allowing us to share with them what we take great pride in. And thank you for raising such sweet and polite young men- we absolutely enjoyed having them here!
