Today, June 7th, would have been my father’s birthday…. Richard H Blacklidge. He was born in 1914, so he would have been 111 years old. He did not quite make this and “walked on” in May 1993 at age 78 a couple of weeks before his 79th birthday.
My father had quite a life. His own father, Kent H Blacklidge, was killed in an auto accident in Georgia when my father was 16 years old. I cannot think of anything more tragic for a teenage son. The story is that his mother, Bernice, could not function nearly at all for an extended time. This meant my father had to take over as head of the family of his mother and sister, Elizabeth, who was a couple of years younger than him.
Life did go on, though. My father was a cadet at Culver Military Academy in the Black Horse Troop. He became the Squadron Commander, the highest cadet officer rank and leader of the Troop. I think back now and believe a faculty member at Culver became extremely important to my father. He was Col. Gerald Whitney, the faculty head of the School of Horsemanship. He and my father remained close their entire lives.
My father attended Purdue University where he studied Chemical Engineering. I can remember seeing some of his books and work. They were all in German. His experience with this education led him to conclude engineering was the best foundation for any enterprise. It taught one how to evaluate and think. This later led to me following an electrical engineering path at Purdue. For various social reasons, I eventually changed paths to that of “Industrial Management” which was a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering (3 years) and foundation management coursework in marketing, finance, labor relations, accounting, and more. That served me well later at the Kokomo Tribune.
At age 24, my father became the CEO of the Kokomo Tribune newspaper following the death of his grandfather, John Arthur Kautz, who was the sole owner of the newspaper. Kautz died in 1938, the year I was born. My father had been at the Tribune for a couple of years in various departments. Ownership of the newspaper passed to Kautz’s three daughters, one of which was my grandmother.
It was only a couple of years later that my father enlisted in the US Army Air Corps during World War II. He did not have to do that given his occupation was designated as a “critical one”. He spent nearly two years as a radio operator based in Iceland before the war ended.
My father led the newspaper for about 40 years before he fully retired. In the interim, he had led the newspaper to become the best medium sized one in the United States, was President of the Hoosier State Press Association, the Inland Daily Press Association, and finally of the American Newspaper Publisher’s Association (a position historically held by the CEO of a major metropolitan newspaper).
The Tribune became a technology leader in the industry beginning in 1964 and was designated as “Best in the Nation” in penetration of its market for 8 of 10 years in the 1970’s. The first printing of a photo composed and offset newspaper at the main Tribune plant was in October 1967. A wholly owned weekly, the Howard County News, had been used as a training ground beginning in 1964 with the installation of a Goss Community press at Greentown. The Kokomo Tribune main plant installed a Goss Metro offset press, the second one in the nation by only a few months. I was fortunate enough to have joined the Tribune family in early 1961 following my graduation from Purdue and helped to direct the Tribune training period of several years.
As it turned out, we led in the development of all “mechanical” systems including the use of computers. I was key in that side of production development. While my father concentrated on outside industry issues and growth, the Tribune had a top management team inside, including me as Associate Publisher, that excelled at what we did. We had visitors from all over the world to see what and how we were doing production. The Tribune employees, then numbering about 185, were a cohesive, dedicated, and innovative “family”. We loved what we were doing. I became the Tribune’s publisher after my father retired fully in 1978. He had backed off some years earlier with time at his and my mother’s home in Florida for several months of the years from about 1972 on.
It all had to come to an end. The final closing of the family ownership of the Kokomo Tribune came in 1982. So, my family members owned the Kokomo Tribune for about 85 years during the height of the dominance of newspapers for news in the United States of American.
This year, my father was inducted into the Howard County Historical Society “Hall of Legends”, an honor he truly deserved. You can see all of this at www.howardcountymuseum.org, then “Programs”, then “Hall of Legends” for 2025. I encourage you to see that program. Kokomo was put on the map once again.
Kent H Blacklidge II