Diocese
of New
A
Look Back
Editor’s note:
In recognition of the upcoming 50th Anniversary of the
Diocese of New
Throughout the early years
the communication efforts of the diocese were maintained by our close association
with The Catholic Bulletin, the official newspaper for the Archdiocese of St.
Paul and
Hot off the press!
The first issue of the
official monthly newspaper of the diocese named Newsletter was published in May
1972. In Bishop Alphonse J. Schladweiler’s first of
many pastoral messages published in the Newsletter, he declared the paper to be
an instrument of unity and charity among us. He writes: “My dear people, now
you need only open the paper and read it, and speak of it to your friends
asking them to read it too. That calls for an ‘I will’ from you and already I
think I hear it echoing from Beardsley to Watkins, from North Mankato to Lake
Benton - the four corners of the diocese. May it become a mighty swell. It is my privilege to contribute the first editorial
for the paper and I use it to call down a devout God bless you’ on every one of
the readers of the maiden edition and of every edition.”
Prior to the initial
publication, it took a year of planning by a communications committee
consisting of editor Fr. Don Eichinger, Margaret
Knutson, Hutchinson; Bill McGarry, Appleton;
associate editor Fr. Henry LaMay, Lois Willette, Olivia; and Fr. Eugene Brown. They proposed an
8-page tabloid that was to be mailed to every household in the diocese free of
charge. No appropriate name emerged so it was called Newsletter. Two more staff
members were added to the production team, Fr. Ed Stone and Sr. Jean Opitz.
Organizing, writing, picture
taking, typesetting, keylining, printing, folding,
binding, and mailing became the order of the week. Susan Lowinsky,
the first department secretary eventually passed the marathon baton over in
1974 to Dorothy Peters who worked with the paper through the early days of the
Newsletter and on into the early days of The Prairie Catholic.
In 1986, the Newsletter was
renamed to The Prairie Catholic. The name was chosen through a “Name the
Newsletter” contest that called for submissions of possible names for the newspaper.
The winning name, The Prairie Catholic,was
submitted by Betty Heymans of Sleepy Eye, MN.
The newspaper continues to
play an important role in diocesan history. As the Holy Father stated in 2006,
“Diocesan newspapers are important because they strengthen local communities
and give them a voice they will not find in national publications.”