"Country editor" McIntosh to get posthumous award from Morningside
By Joanne Fox, Journal staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, September 23, 2008
SIOUX CITY -- Morningside College will present its 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award to the small-town newspaper editor who was featured prominently in Ken Burns' 2007 PBS documentary, "The War."
The award will be presented posthumously to Alan C. McIntosh, former owner and editor of the Rock County Star Herald in Luverne, Minn., at an Oct. 15 private dinner before the 2008 Peter Waitt Lecture featuring filmmaker Burns. McIntosh's daughter, Jean McIntosh Vickstrom of Bettendorf, Iowa, will accept the award.
During World War II, McIntosh's weekly column, 'More or Less Personal Chaff," chronicled the war's impact for readers of the Rock County Star Herald. Burns featured many of McIntosh's columns in the documentary, and actor Tom Hanks read the columns for the film.
McIntosh was born in Park River, N.D., in 1905. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and the family moved to Sioux City in 1918. A 1922 graduate of Sioux City's Central High School, McIntosh attended Morningside College for three years before enrolling at the University of Nebraska, where he received his degree in 1928.
He worked for newspapers in Lincoln, Neb., before buying the Rock County Star in 1940. He bought the Rock County Herald in 1942 and merged the two papers into the Rock County Star Herald.
Burns, in interviews about the film, called McIntosh's writings, "the single greatest archival discovery we have ever made." McIntosh sold the paper in 1968 but continued to live in Luverne until his death in 1979 at age 73. His obituary reported that McIntosh referred to himself as a "country editor."
In an interview with the Journal that was published Sept. 29, 2007, Vickstrom spoke of her father's smile, which she said would "light up a room," and characterized him as a "loving, wonderful, knowledgeable" man.
"He studied history and current events and politics," she said. "He had an all-encompassing view of the current situation as well as the larger world we lived in."
The award will be presented posthumously to Alan C. McIntosh, former owner and editor of the Rock County Star Herald in Luverne, Minn., at an Oct. 15 private dinner before the 2008 Peter Waitt Lecture featuring filmmaker Burns. McIntosh's daughter, Jean McIntosh Vickstrom of Bettendorf, Iowa, will accept the award.
During World War II, McIntosh's weekly column, 'More or Less Personal Chaff," chronicled the war's impact for readers of the Rock County Star Herald. Burns featured many of McIntosh's columns in the documentary, and actor Tom Hanks read the columns for the film.
McIntosh was born in Park River, N.D., in 1905. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and the family moved to Sioux City in 1918. A 1922 graduate of Sioux City's Central High School, McIntosh attended Morningside College for three years before enrolling at the University of Nebraska, where he received his degree in 1928.
He worked for newspapers in Lincoln, Neb., before buying the Rock County Star in 1940. He bought the Rock County Herald in 1942 and merged the two papers into the Rock County Star Herald.
Burns, in interviews about the film, called McIntosh's writings, "the single greatest archival discovery we have ever made." McIntosh sold the paper in 1968 but continued to live in Luverne until his death in 1979 at age 73. His obituary reported that McIntosh referred to himself as a "country editor."
In an interview with the Journal that was published Sept. 29, 2007, Vickstrom spoke of her father's smile, which she said would "light up a room," and characterized him as a "loving, wonderful, knowledgeable" man.
"He studied history and current events and politics," she said. "He had an all-encompassing view of the current situation as well as the larger world we lived in."
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