PETERSON, Charles B. 1942-2012

PETERSON, HANKINSON

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 8/28/2012 at 23:42:29

The community of St. Ansgar is mourning the loss of a local businessman.

Charles "Chuck" Peterson, publisher and owner of the St. Ansgar Enterprise-Journal, died August 18, 2012. He was 70 years old.

A memorial service for Peterson will take place at 3 p.m., Saturday, September 8, 2012, at Schroeder and Sites Funeral Home in St. Ansgar. Visitation will precede the services from 1 to 3 p.m. A celebration of his life will follow the memorial services beginning at 4 p.m. at the St. Ansgar American Legion.

Peterson, who had a long and varied career in the newspaper industry, purchased the St. Ansgar Enterprise Journal in 1999. Deb Stickney, operations manager for the newspaper, said Peterson will be greatly missed at the newspaper and in the community.

"Chuck was possibly the best boss in the world - he not only cared for St. Ansgar and how the citizens felt about the paper - but he cared deeply for his employees and their families," said Stickney. "Chuck was a brilliant man with a heart of gold. One of his goals was to always keep the Enterprise-Journal a hometown paper. He will be sadly missed by all the lives he touched in the 13 years he owned the paper here."

Peterson was well-known for his sense of humor, annually printing ficticous stories on "April Fools Day" in the Enterprise-Journal. One year, according to Stickney, he printed out-of-focus photos of the Cedar River and warned the community of an alleged alligator sighting near the dam.

"People showed up from miles around to look for St. Ansgar's own Loch Ness monster - so many people that traffic was backed up in the area," said Stickney.

After that, according to Stickney, Mitchell County Sheriff Curt Younker warned Peterson to let law enforcement know in advance about any such April fools articles.

"He always had a joke to tell us," said St. Ansgar Deputy City Clerk Donna Rachut, who worked closely with Peterson with legal notices to publish for the city. "He was fun to work with and we will miss him."

Peterson, originally from St. Paul, Minn., started his newspaper career at the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press in the 1970s. He then moved to the Press-Courier in Oxnard, California, where he worked as circulation manager.

In 1982, Peterson moved to the Santa Barbara News-Press, and in 1985 he started a new job at the Bakersfield California. In 1990, he started work as a union negotiator for the Des Moines Register, which is owned by the Gannett Corporation. In 1995, he went to work for the Santa New Mexican newspaper before coming to St. Ansgar in 1999.

St. Ansgar Police Chief Lance Schutjer said that Peterson seemed to be "in-tune" with the local community and was good about communicating with his department.

"He was good to work with in terms of communicating what we wanted the public to know and was always supportive of our D.A.R.E. program here" said Schutjer. "He seemed to do whatever he could to help."

Kris Olson of Osage, the former lead pressman for the Mitchell County Press-News, which printed the St. Ansgar Enterprise Journal for many decades before ending web printing services in 2010, said that Peterson will be sorely missed.

"He was a square shooter with a quick wit," said Olson, who now works at the Charles City Press and is also a dispatcher for the Mitchell County Sheriff's Department. "He was not only very considerate and caring - but was able to make us laugh too."

Peterson is survived by three children, Betsy Peterson and her partner Kelli Albert from Soquel, California; Bill Peterson and his wife Lilly of Ventura, California; and Beret Hankinson and husband Shane from Atlanta, Georgia.

[Mitchell County Press online, 8/28/2012]

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Charles B. Peterson

Born: March 3, 1942
Died: August 18, 2012

Visitation:
Date: Saturday, September 8, 1:00 – 3:00 pm

Location: Saint Ansgar

Funeral Service:
Date: Saturday, September 8, 3:00 PM
Location: Schroeder & Sites Funeral Home, Saint Ansgar

[Schroeder & Sites Funeral Home website, 8/28/2012]
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Photo of Charles Peterson, from McPress.com

Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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