Harty: Paper carrier turned publisher

By Susan Larson | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, March 10, 2008

It seems Ken Harty has spent most of his life getting the news out. Starting as a paperboy for the Wahpeton-Breckenridge Daily News, the road to advancement led him away from home. His life came full circle last August when he became publisher of the five-day-a-week paper.

It’s not like he planned it that way. Like many high school seniors, Harty had no clear career path in mind when he graduated from Breckenridge High School in 1987. But he still had a plan of sorts. He enrolled at North Dakota State College of Science, as a business management major.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he said, “but everywhere you work, there’s a manager.”

After completing his education at Northern State University, Aberdeen, S.D., Harty returned to Breckenridge in 1992. He didn’t have to wait long before the Daily News beckoned. Once his foot was in the door, he did everything from classified ads, to overseeing paper routes, to working in the press room. He was selling advertising in 2002, when Wick Communications, the paper’s parent company, offered him a job as assistant advertising manager in New Iberia, La.

“It was an opportunity for advancement and to learn,” he said.

It was a learning experience in more ways than one for the Minnesota boy.

“I went into culture shock,” he said. “It’s Cajun land there. It’s between New Orleans and Lake Charles on the Cajun Coast. We take it for granted how good we have it here. Everything there is waiting in line.”

An advertising director position opened in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., in December 2005. Besides advancement, the move had other advantages.

“North Carolina is a really beautiful place to live, Harty said. “Two hours from Virginia Beach, three hours from Washington, D.C., five hours from the Smoky Mountains. That close to all of the sites, it was like vacation all the time. I had no intentions of leaving. I figured I’d eventually become publisher there.”

Fate — and Wick — intervened — in July 2007, with an offer to become publisher “back home.”

“I let my wife and kids (Esmerelda and daughters Jenny, 15, and Jolene, 13) make that decision because I could have stayed there.”

They chose home.

“I’m glad to be back,” he said. “It’s that love of hometown. We don’t know how good we have it here. The quality of people in our region is second to none.”

Taking the helm wasn’t too daunting.

“An advantage to me was that I was able to hit the ground running based on my prior experience here. I feel I’ve trained for this my whole life, working the front of the building to the back. In New Iberia, I had 19 people under me in advertising. I was included in department head meetings where managerial decisions were made, so I got a lot of training there. In Roanoake Rapids, I was in charge of a good-sized division. Now, instead of advertising people shuffling through my office, I have department heads.”

There’s also something to be said for having the hometown advantage.

“The comments I’ve been hearing out there on the street, people are happy to have someone local in the position. Someone who knows the area and the challenges we face has benefits of its own.”

There’s a certain kind of contentment that comes with replanting roots. For Harty, that’s a good thing.

“According to my wife, this is our last move.”

No problem.

“I don’t have a reason to move now,” he said. “But if I hadn’t moved, I wouldn’t be sitting where I am today.”