Newspaper Editor Named Featured Alumnus
Sugar Grove – Yorkville resident John Etheredge is one of those rare and lucky individuals who, from an early age, know the career they want to do and are able to spend most of their lifetimes doing it. For almost 30 years, Etheredge has been a member of the local community, and its recorder, while working for the Oswego Ledger-Sentinel newspaper. To honor his success, Waubonsee Community College has named him as the Featured Alumnus for August.
While a student at West Aurora High School, Etheredge was involved in the student newspaper and knew he wanted to pursue journalism further when he attended college. He also knew where he wanted to go to college.
“Some high schoolers are geared up and ready to go away, but I wasn’t in that mode,” Etheredge said.
Etheredge’s desire to stay close to home and family was a deciding factor in his choosing Waubonsee, as was his family itself — his older brother William had attended and enjoyed it, and his father Forest Etheredge was serving as Waubonsee’s president at the time. Still, John did not feel pressured.
“My parents gave me the choice, and I never thought twice about it,” he said.
Etheredge also never thought twice about his field of study, enrolling in an Introduction to Journalism course his first semester. He remembers being recruited to write for Insight, Waubonsee’s student newspaper, by the college’s first journalism instructor, Shirley Borel.
“Waubonsee had so many good teachers,” Etheredge said. “That’s probably what set it apart from any other educational experience I’ve had.”
Etheredge could have felt set apart from other students given his familial connections to the college’s administration, but neither he nor his father let that happen.
“My dad was a busy guy, and I was a busy student, and he was wise enough to let me do my own thing,” Etheredge said.
While print journalism was his passion, Etheredge did also have a chance to explore broadcast journalism while at Waubonsee, serving as an anchor for a campus news program that was broadcast in-house at Provena Mercy Center.
“If I had gone straight to Northern Illinois University, as a freshman or sophomore, I wasn’t going to be editing the newspaper or anchoring a TV show,” Etheredge said. “It was nice to start at Waubonsee and get those hands-on experiences.”
Etheredge did not start at NIU but did finish there, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1980, two years after earning his associate degree from Waubonsee. These two schools not only prepared him for his first job as a reporter, in a way, they also helped him land it.
As they are to this day, back in 1980, Jeff and Kathy Farren were the publishers of the Record Newspapers group, which includes the Oswego Ledger-Sentinel. They also printed Insight, and so Etheredge had been to the Record offices to pick up proof sheets and such when he was a Waubonsee student. When he submitted his résumé after his NIU graduation, the Farrens knew his name and hired the fellow NIU journalism alumnus.
After starting out as a part-time reporter, Etheredge became the paper’s first full-time reporter in 1981. At the time, about 7,500 copies of the paper were printed each week; now, almost 30 years later, an average of 23,000 are printed.
And that’s really been the major story of the Oswego/Montgomery area during the time Etheredge has been covering it — growth beyond anyone’s expectations.
“That’s the larger story, the growth and how it affects everything,” Etheredge said. “The question becomes ‘How does this small town maintain is character and identity?’”
In his various roles at the paper, from reporter to news editor, and now editor, Etheredge has worked hard to ensure that the Oswego Ledger-Sentinel maintains its identity.
“We try to do a good job of telling local stories each week, and that is what has allowed us to grow with the community,” Etheredge said.
While some of the newspaper industry is struggling, Etheredge says weekly papers are doing well.
“People want to know about what is happening locally, and weeklies are where they can get that,” he said.
According to Etheredge, covering local sports and letting residents know where their tax dollars are going have always been major focuses of the Ledger-Sentinel.
Besides his focus on his job at the paper, Etheredge also enjoys spending time with his family — wife, Nancy, whom he met at Waubonsee; older son, Peter, who attended Waubonsee and will be starting at Augustana College this fall; and younger son, Christopher, who is a senior at Yorkville High School.
Featured Alumnus
The Featured Alumnus Program is administered by the Office of the President. Several times a year Waubonsee Community College Alumni are recognized for their community service, continuing education, and excellence in their chosen profession.
To suggest a Featured Alumnus for potential recognition please email tleatherbury@waubonsee.edu. |
