POTTER, Merle

POTTER, ARTHUR, HEFFNER, MUSE, CONROY, MILLER, JAY, WILLSON, HOWE

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 03:13:14

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, December 07, 1940, Page 5

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 38 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

Merle Potter, Columnist and Critic

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Well known to the hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers in the Twin cities and all over Minnesota, in Hollywood and among newspaper men throughout the country is the name of Merle Potter, outstanding columnist and movie and dramatic critic for the Minneapolis Tribune newspapers.

For in the dozen or so yeas that Merle Potter has been active in Twin Cities journalism, his amusing feature stories, his able movie and drama criticisms and his widely read column have brought the former Mason Cityan widespread recognition and a host of friends.

Merle Potter early began to give some indication that he was inclined toward things theatrical and the newspaper game as well when he undertook two separate business ventures each of which lay in one of the two fields. One of them, when he waas a boy of 10 or 11, was the publishing of programs for the shows that used to play at Tom Arthur's open house. The young business man hustled around and sold advertising to be printed around the outside of the programs. In addition, he used to take and sell tickets for Mr. Arthur and Jim Heffner at the Bijou theater on South Federal avenue, then commonly known as Main Street.

But his first job was delivery papers for the Mason City Globe-Gazette. He recalls that on occasion he would hear from the late W. T. Muse and D. M. Conroy when some of the subscribers failed to get their papers but apparently he was considered reliable and industrious enough to be accepted as the printers' devil. In those days the Globe-Gazette was printed in offices on South Federal avenue across from the Knights of Columbus building.

Merle attended school in Mason City after his parents had moved here when he was 7 years old. He was born in Corwith and the Potter family lived at Britt for a time before coming to Mason City.

* * *
In high school the young man took an active part in school affairs. He captained the sophomore basketball team and one year the class five captured the school championship. There is still a tarnished cup in his possessions, marking that memorable accomplishment.

* * *
A flair for journalism evidenced itself when young Merle Potter became editor of the school paper, "The Ink Spot." Something of a cloud may have been cast on that flair, however, by the editor's trials and tribulations in Miss Vera Miller's English class.

Other athletic activities included playing first bse on the high school nine.

One of the big events in those days, and one which provided one of Merle Potter's most vivid remembrances of Mason City, was the building of an airplane in the Mason City armory by Ken Jay.

Another memory and a poignant one, is of hearing Marie Gale, later the leading woman for the Bainbridge players of Minneapolis, and the wife of A. G. Bainbridge, sing "The Holy City" in a Tom Thumb wedding production at the opera house.

And the now successful columnist used to sit and talk about prospective writing careers by the hour with another successful writer - Dixie Willson.

* * *
After three years in M. C. H. S., Merle entered Shattuck military academy for two years. Following his graduation he went to the University of Minnesota and during his four years there was business manager of The Gopher, college annual, and managing editor of the Minnesota Daily.

The young Mason Cityan followed his bent for journalism for a time after leaving the university, operating a country weekly at Waukon for two years. Then the war came and he went to Des Moines as manager of the fuel administration office there.

Merle's father had wanted him to be in the lumber business with him in Mason City and after the war he returned here to be connected with the Webster-Potter Lumber company.

It was during this period that the young business man turned his attention to the law, studying a correspondence law course through the office of Remley Glass and in time becoming a member of the Iowa bar.

* * *
In 1926 Merle Potter organized the Midwest Investment company and the Mutual Building and Loan association.

During the war years Merle Potter and Miss Lucy Howe of Mason city were married and they are now the parents of two sons, one of whom operates a theater in St. Paul. The other is a student at the University of Minnesota. Merle's mother, Mrs. T. A. Potter, still lives in Mason City, making her home at 40 Oak drive.

When an opportunity came for him to return to journalism, Merle accepted it and was named business editor of the Minneapolis Journal. After a year to this post, the former Mason Cityan became motion and theater editor for the Journal, serving in that capacity for a number of years.

In addition to this work, the motion picture editor showed a real talent for writing feature stories and a good many of his stories were recognized by newspapermen and readers alike as outstanding bits of writing and originality.

* * *
A year and a half ago Merle Potter became the motion picture and drama editor for the Tribune newspapers and also is now conductor of the column, "Our Times." In addition to his daily work of reviewing pictures and plays and writing his column, the former Mason Cityan edits a Sunday Tribune relegavuer movie page and broadcasts four times a week over a Twin Cities radio station, WTCX.

His work takes him to Hollywood each year and there he sees and talks with many of the big names in the moving picture industry, gathering background and advance information on the film stars and their pictures.

In addition, the popular colunist has written one book, "One Hundred and One Best Stories in Minnesota," and now is working on a novel that is a fictionalized account of the life of Ignatius Donnelly, and outstanding author and a man termed by Merle as probably the most interesting person ever to live in Minnesota.

A memorable incident in Merle Potter's career as critic was the time he criticized adversely a performance by John Barton of Jeeler Lester in "Tobacco Road." Mr. Barton immediately fired back at him and in short order, a friendly feud was under way.

* * *
The incident ceded when the former Mason Cityan took a three minute stint in the play as Jeeter Lester and the actor wrote a review of the effort for Merle's paper. Mr. Barton, incidently, praised the acting highly.

Popular indeed is the columnist with his readers. When a contest was recently held to name his column, it seemed for a time that the contest would run all out of bounds, so many were the entries and the prizes put up by various interested citizens and business houses.

And each year at Thanksgiving time, Merle Potter and a group of Minneapolis and St. Paul entertainers go to to the state prison at Stillwater to present a program of entertainment for the prisoners there.

Merle Potter's story is a good one, a nice one to tell. It's the tale of what ability and hard work can do and it's one that reflects real credit to Mason City.

And in the days to come there will probbly be more accomplisments to add to it.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, November of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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