Details

Collection Summary
Collection: FND005 - SHSND Foundation - Newspaper Hall of Fame
Series: Tribute
Folder: DIG
Item: 00025
Title: Donald Gackle
Date: 2001
Creator:
Inscription/Marks:
Summary: Don Gackle set his sights high. At age 11, he campaigned for Wendell Wilke's presidential campaign. A failed election didn't deter him. As a high school student at Kulm, N.D., Gackle wrote sports, mostly baseball. But that led the high school student with an interest in things political to writing editorials for his hometown Kulm Messenger. That early interest took Gackle to the University of North Dakota where he graduated with a degree in journalism in 1951. His first job paid $30 a week putting out the Wishek Star. After two years of military service and 10 years with the Greater North Dakota Association, Gackle returned to his journalistic interests by purchasing the McLean County Independent in Garrison in 1963. Gackle became a trendsetter in 1966 when he became the first owner in North Dakota of an offset press capable of printing a newspaper. The capacity of the press led Gackle into an expansion mode by 1968, first purchasing the Hazen Star and gaining a contract to print The Sentry for Minot Air Force Base. In 1970, he acquired the Beulah Independent, which became the Beulah Beacon. At that point he formed BHG Inc. named for the first letters of the towns Beaulah, Hazen and Garrison. In 1985, BHG purchased the Washburn Leader, Center Republican, Underwood News, and Wilton News. Later, The New Town News, Mountrail County Record at Parshall and McLean County Journal at Turtle Lake became part of the BHG family. The latest paper of what Gackle has called "a family of family newspapers," is the Velva Area Voice, begun in 2000 at the request of the business community in Velva. In addition to being a writer, editor and publisher of newspapers that have won a mountain of awards over the years, Gackle has been active in state and national newspaper affairs. He served as president of the North Dakota Newspaper Association in 1975, and over the course of 37 years of membership in the association he served on vitually every one of its committees. He served on the National Newspaper Association Government Affairs Committee and was one of the founding directors of the NDNA Education Foundation, for which he was given lifetime honorary membership. Gackle was active in his church and led fundraisersto build a swimming pool and low-income housing development in Garrison. He has helped in many other ventures in the communities in which BHG operates newspapers, including the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, the Dakota Walleye Classic in Beulah and the Sakakawea Medical Center in Hazen. In 1996, the Garrison community led a Don Gackle Appreciation Day, and in 1997 he received the Garrison "Citizen of the Year" award. "If there is an important job to be done anywhere, people look to Don," writes longtime friend and fellow Hall of Fame member John Andrist. "And a worthy cause never seems to get a 'no' for an answer. He is innovative, imaginative and dedicated. All of us who have known and worked with him over the years are richer because of it."
Red ID: FND_I_77465 Image ID: 509284 Image Notes: 10950 00005 00025

Collection: FND005 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: SHSND Foundation - Newspaper Hall of Fame
Date:

Summary: The Hall of Honors features the biographies of recognized leaders in North Dakota's newspaper industry. This resource is sponsored by the North Dakota Newspaper Association and the NDNA Education Foundation.

Enter a subject or term in one or both of the “Search” boxes.

  • “Item Detail” searches the Title, Creator and Summary fields of all item-level records.
  • “Collection Number” searches the Collection Number field only and requires an exact match.

The “DETAILS” button provides additional information about an item, as well as the following options:

  • “Collection Summary” details the contents of the entire collection in which the selected item is located.
  • You can print the image and its corresponding details by selecting “Print".
  • “Digitized Images from the Collection” returns a list of all digitized items within that collection (available from the “Collection Summary” screen).

Click on image to expand/zoom the image view.

“Photobook home” takes you back to the main Photobook page where you can start a new search.

“Featured Collections” showcases new and/or popular collections and the digitized images within those collections.

Information on how to order copies is located here.

The collections preserved in the North Dakota State Archives include over a million images. Only a small percentage of these images have been digitized. This photo gallery provides a preview of the images that have been digitized.

For more information on the non-digitized images, please refer to the finding aids found on our website at history.nd.gov, or ask a member of our reference staff for assistance.