The following is a list of comments received from several former Press employees. Some comments were gathered when The Press published the city centennial edition in 2013.

Additional comments will be added to this story as they arrive. Have a memory of your own? Include your name, former position, time period worked and any memories and email salamancapress(at)gmail.com or write to Salamanca Press, 36 River St., Salamanca, NY 14779.

Kevin Burleson

Editor, 1988-2004

The Salamanca Press fills a niche providing the only source of information to local residents. It was with pride that I would tell people I worked for the smallest daily newspaper in New York state.

You can regurgitate the news given to you by politicians, government officials and agencies but I always tried to make it local — to tell how it affected the average reader.

Over my 16 years at The Press, I covered homicides, congressional hearings in Washington, D.C., about the land lease with the Seneca Nation; a presidential campaign stop in Jamestown by then-Sen. Al Gore; and protests blocking Interstate 86 (for which I won a news photo award). I took thousands of sports photos ranging from high school football to the AFC Championship game at Rich Stadium.

It really was a dream job that changed day to day. You never knew what tomorrow would bring.

Well before instant feedback from internet comments, readers always gave you feedback from a visit to the barbershop or a comment by a former Press editor who picked up his free paper everyday at the office only to complain about something that he thought should have been better in the previous edition.

News writing is to a large part recording history, and Salamanca has had a rich past.

Margaret Cleveland

The late Margaret Cleveland started work in the classified department in 1953 and later was lifestyles editor until just before her death in 2002.

Many changes took place during her time. She remembered the big printing press that took half of the front portion of the building. She remembered the installation in 1967 of the first web offset press in Cattaraugus County and the remodel of The Press building.

“I can still see the monstrous, yawning boiler in the corner of the old press room. Many were the tantalizing smells emitted when Otie was using it to cook a steak,” she wrote.

David Edstrom

Sports Editor, 1997-2000

Looking back at my short time as the Salamanca Press sports editor I can honestly say it was one of the most rewarding and memorable experiences I have been a part of.

I interviewed for the job with no experience whatsoever. I handed Managing Editor Kevin Burleson a folder full of papers from a satire newspaper I would put together during my days in high school called ‘The Daily Jones.’ Each story I wrote was accompanied with a cartoon sketch and some witty humor to go along with it. I guess you could say I was always interested in putting together my own paper dating back to my freshman year in school. I assume Kevin found the papers funny enough that he took a chance and offered me the job.

At no time was it ever a burden for me to work at The Press. I would arrive at least an hour before anyone else came in, partially because I typed with two fingers, needing the extra time to complete my work before deadline, but mostly because I enjoyed working with the coaches and students on a daily basis. Having the opportunity to witness Ron Wojtowicz’s Salamanca varsity softball team win the New York state championship, Rich Morton’s Salamanca varsity football team in the state finals and Pete Weishan’s undefeated basketball team play in the Section VI Championship game were among my top three highlights working for The Press.

Bill Ferguson

It was with great pride that I got my start printing at The Salamanca Press. Shortly after getting out of the Army I was hired at The Press to catch the papers as they came off the press. It was boring and dirty work! Soon after, the man that did the commercial printing retired, and Weber Austin asked me I would like to try it. I loved it. Every job was different and interesting, and you could put your personal pride into the work. Weber continued to be my mentor for many years as I started my own printing business. Such good memories of working with many wonderful people!

Sue Fries

Sue started working for The Press out of college in 1970 and continued for 15 years.

The thing I remember most about working at The Press is the people. I made friends there that I still think were the best people in the world to work with.

I had a tremendous amount of respect for Latham Weber because of his knowledge of the newspaper business and am thankful for the lessons he taught me in business ethics.

As receptionist, I sat at the front desk next to Margaret Cleveland and answered the phone, took care of classified ads, national advertising and accounts receivable.

Beverly Hannon

Beverly Hannon worked as proofreader and society editor (the day’s version of the lifestyles editor) and ultimately became editor.

When I started working at The Press, it was owned by the Weber family. Latham Weber was my boss, and working for him was an education in itself. He was demanding and helpful at the same time. I learned the reason for deadlines, importance of correct spelling, careful checking of facts and many other things.

The news profession attracts a wide variety of personalities and The Press was no exception — but everyone’s major interest was to produce a quality paper each day.

Rodney Hensel

City Editor, 1976-79

For four of its 150 years, from 1976 to 1979, I was city editor of the Salamanca Republican-Press. Wait, only four? With so many memories of those days, it seems like it must have been longer.

I came to The Press after being news director at WGGO and a correspondent for the Buffalo Courier-Express. I had started in radio news in high school but found print to be more challenging and complete. I had in fact been regularly “scooping” The Press, my direct competitor, but I was still shocked when Latham Weber, owner, publisher and editor, called and asked if I would be interested in working full time at The Press.

Probably the most historic event was the day Latham called me into his office and said it was time for him to retire and that he was selling the paper to the owners of The Bradford Era.

Mostly, I didn’t want to see Latham go, for he had become my mentor and friend, teaching me more about journalism and news reporting than St, Bonaventure ever could have. Latham was a Harvard grad and could have had a spot at any newspaper in America but instead came back to Salamanca to run the family paper. And he ran it with the rules, standards and ethics of the New York Times.

Mostly he taught me that I was recording the history of our community and its people. It was important to get it right and to put it in the context of what had gone on before, meaning we spent a lot of time going through the big bound books of past editions of The Press kept in the center of the newsroom like an altar.

The events I remember covering were not crimes and disasters, but the tales of a city slipping into economic decline but taking on heroic projects to slow it down. I covered the first and many subsequent Falling Leaves Festivals, organized by Paul Formica, Theresa Leaskey and Tony Carbone.

I remember the library project, where a young, new librarian named Tom Sharbaugh teamed with Al Ullman, the ever-optimistic Ron Yehl and all the local Jaycees to turn the recently vacated Loblaws Supermarket on Wildwood Avenue into a modern new library to replace the crowded Carnegie grant building on South Main Street. They did all the work themselves over the course of a couple of years, holding all kinds of creative fundraisers every month to buy the materials.

Those were really magical events, and their success was repeated in community projects like the restoration of the Seneca Theater and creation of the Salamanca Rail Museum in the abandoned BR&P rail depot.

As much as I remember the events, I have fonder memories of the newsroom. We were a small staff but always dedicated to putting out the best newspaper possible.

I worked with some really outstanding people: Rick Miller, a top-notch photographer who still writes for the Olean Times Herald; Pat Vecchio, who just this year retired from the media studies faculty at St. Bonaventure; Geoff Rowan, who left for the Toronto Star and now runs a PR firm in Canada; Bev Hannon, who spent her whole career as lifestyles (originally society) editor; and Phil Amelee, our hardworking sports editor and avid Bruce Springsteen fan who left for parts unknown and has not been found.

In the years to come, I would leave to become the managing editor of a business newspaper in Buffalo, only to return later to work for the city in economic development. For a while my sister, Donna Snyder, a far more aggressive reporter than I ever was, would work for several years at The Press before leaving to be the Cattaraugus County bureau reporter for The Buffalo News, where she kept filing stories until just three days before her death.

I would argue to anyone who might ask that The Salamanca Press is what makes Salamanca a real community. Though its population has declined and the old manufacturing jobs have left and Main Street is not at all what it used to be, it is The Press that keeps the community informed and united. It’s been doing that for 150 years. And as long as there is a Salamanca Press — in whatever form the future might hold — Salamanca will retain its distinctive identity as a place people are proud to call home.

Laura Howard

Common Council meetings were often eventful during my time on the city government and Seneca Nation beat at The Salamanca Press.

When I started as a reporter in 1994, Mayor Rosalyn Hoag and a new council had just taken office. The courtroom was filled with people in opposition to the 1991 40/40 leases with the Seneca Nation. The public discussion period, though somewhat predictable, was often more eventful that the council agenda itself.

Audience members opened the windows and told the protesters they had a right to come in and be heard. They made room for them and let them have the floor. The city officials, the protesters and all the businessmen looked surprised.

I think that night marked the point where the community was getting ready to move into some dark times.

The manner in which we put out the newspaper changed dramatically over the 13-and-a-half years I was with the Press.

When I started as a city reporter in 1994, the air in the building was filled with a mixture of hot paste-up wax, printer’s ink and machine oil. We wrote our stories on cube-shaped Mac Classics, and our work was stored on 3.5-inch diskettes. Stories were pasted on the pages with wax and sent to a camera.

By the time I became editor-publisher at the end of 2004, we were designing pages on the computer and sending PDFs to the printing plant at a sister paper.

It was easier, faster, cleaner and more fun — but it didn’t have that glorious smell.

Mike “The Swami” Sharbaugh

The Swami returns! It was only one year, 1995-1996, when the Swami graced the pages of The Salamanca Press. But it seems the legend has far exceeded the duration of service.

The Swami will forever be remembered among Warrior family and fans, and the Swami himself will never forget the times, trials and tribulations of reporting on Salamanca football (Let’s all face it … there were other sports, but, frankly, they just didn’t matter).

The Swami fondly remembers the 1995 Warrior team that won the Section VI crown, despite a ridiculously unlucky loss to a ridiculously lucky Randolph team. The Swami less fondly remembers the Warriors getting absolutely dismantled by an amazing, eventual state champ LeRoy team in the regional finals. That was this team’s first encounter with the state playoffs, and they got better. They later went to the state finals against an Edgemont team that had 6 (SIX!) NCAA Division 1 starters, and the Warriors darn near won. In 2001, they again reached the state final four, and lost to a Delhi team that was less talented, but more, shall we say, focused, than the SHS team that had gone out partying the night prior. That was the beginning of the end of the mystique of Salamanca football. It’s been rough since then, and even the Swami has no answers.

The Swami will always love George Whitcher, the coach of the mighty Warriors during the Swami’s school years. The biggest, softest, teddy bear man who would ever beat your rear end if you didn’t do your job. He was the man behind the Salamanca “Saturday Night Lights” football. (For those who don’t remember, Salamanca used to play all home games on Saturday nights, when every other team was off and could come scout, just to prove that, even if you knew what we were doing, you couldn’t stop us.) The Swami vaguely remembers Joe Sanfilippo, Whitcher’s mentor, who’s a high school coaching legend and a darn good man.

The Swami also very fondly remembers certain parents of certain players, who would offer certain gifts if said players happened to show up in photographs on the front page of the Press. No names mentioned, of course, but the Swami ate free at a certain restaurant a lot that one year.

More than anything, the Swami remembers the undying, unwavering love and support of a community for a school and a sports program that, at one time, proudly represented a great city. The Swami will always and forever be a Warrior. The Swami cannot wait for that pride to return.

Apparently, this is the 150th anniversary of the Press. Makes one wonder, what sports were being covered in 1867? That’s precisely the year Yale, Princeton, Brown and Rutgers started playing what we now know as American football, but the Press has always been too cheap to send sportswriters on the road, so that wasn’t covered. James Naismith didn’t invent basketball until 1891. They say Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839, but that’s a lie. And hockey was just a weird Canuck thing. The Swami looks forward to seeing what Mr. Sam Wilson uncovers regarding ancient sports coverage.

FYI, for those who are unaware, the Salamanca Swami did NOT steal the Swami shtick from that loudmouth Chris Berman on ESPN. Berman, in fact, a Brown University alum, stole his shtick from the University of Pennsylvania’s (the Swami’s alma mater) Daily Pennsylvanian newspaper’s sports section, who coined the term many years before Berman was even born.

Mrs. Carlton Smith

Correspondent since 1960s who continues to write for the newspaper

Since early 1963, thousands of words have been formed on a manual typewriter and mailed off to The Salamanca Press. Words that told of events and the people who made them happen in our little town of East Otto. Due to the clipping and preserving a lot of those words have found their way into albums currently on display at the Otto Historical Building.

In the early days weddings, bridal showers, baby showers, birthday parties, family reunions, 4-H Club meetings, Home Bureau sessions, Farm Bureau sessions, Firemen’s Auxiliary meetings as well as personals made up the correspondents’ columns.

I still enjoy gathering information and submitting it. It keeps me young and my fingers nimble!

Lorre Vassar

I was only 26 when I started working at The Press in 1987 and can still be found seated at the front desk.

I was hired by Brian Ackley, who was the editor at the time and worked on classified and newspaper paste-up. I learned a great appreciation for computers here at The Press. I also made lots of good friends like Kasey Stockman Schmitt, who worked here for many years.

The best thing, though, is that I met my husband at The Press.