JENNIFER MacNEIL

Staff Writer

FALLBROOK -- The role of a newspaper reporter may often be a thankless job, but Fallbrook resident Edwin Jacobs, who recently retired after 63 years in the business, knows that the work is what one makes of it.

In his case, that meant bucking the urban, cosmopolitan career path that many of his college colleagues followed in favor of ownership of a small local paper in a Swedish farming town in Northern California.

In this occupation, Jacobs, now 90, would spend 63 years of his life serving a community of which he was very much a part.

Jacobs' upbringing had always emphasized education, but not necessarily journalism; his father was president of Ohio's Ashland College, where Jacobs received a bachelor's degree and soon made plans to become a teacher.

That particular idea soon changed because of a shortage of teaching positions, and Jacobs' interest in journalism began to grow. His acceptance to the prestigious Columbia School of Journalism in New York City solidified this new ambition, and gave him the tools with which he would go on to become a career journalist for more than 60 years.

While living in New York, Jacobs wrote church news and filler articles for the New York Times.

"They would send me out to a particular church," he said, "and they would use it for a filler article. In case they had room, they would have something that they could just put in there."

Jacobs' work at the New York Times was followed by a brief stint in advertising, but the fast-paced city life never quite stuck.

"This one (speaker at Columbia) had talked about a small paper and how much better it was, because you knew everybody you were writing about, and they knew you," said Jacobs. "You were part of the community. I thought, 'gee, a little newspaper would really be the thing.' "

Following that feeling, Jacobs relocated to a small, rural town near Fresno and bought the Kingsburg Recorder for $4,000 in 1937. Though he had not initially intended to purchase his own paper, Jacobs said he felt that doing so would be the best way to mold the paper into the community-oriented publication that he had heard about from the speaker at Columbia.

"I got a hold of a broker," said Jacobs, "and he told me that the (paper) in Kingsburg was for sale. It was a good paper and a nice town, so I bought it."

The weekly newspaper, which consisted of two sections, was run by Jacobs and his partner, Betty Kern, who managed the books and finances and wrote the social news. Jacobs himself wrote features, news, editorials and even acted as the paper's only photographer.

"He wanted to own his own business and be his own boss," said Jacobs' oldest daughter, Mary Katherine Swanson.

Not only was Jacobs the sole voice of journalism in the town at that time, he delved into community affairs even further by serving as president of the Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club and serving on several local commissions. "I wanted to take part in the life, aside from just being a reporter."

Jacobs would go on to involve himself in nearly every aspect of the town, and once witnessed firsthand the aftermath of a devastating train accident near the town.

During World War II, his job exempted him from joining battle efforts, but he was still able to chronicle the conflict from home, thus making him an important link between the town and the confrontation that raged overseas.

Locally, Jacobs said his occupation occasionally put him in an awkward position as both a journalist and a member of a close-knit community.

"If somebody in town was involved in a scandal, like maybe a bankruptcy or theft, he had to decide how much to publish and how much to tell," said Swanson. Respect from the community, however, remained strong. "(He was) well-known in his editorials for taking a strong stand."

Jacobs occasionally let his work follow him home, but not without assistance. Along with her mother Corrine and sister Elizabeth, Swanson took part helping to run certain aspects of the newspaper.

"It was sort of a family thing," said Swanson. "He had a contest he ran in the newspaper, and it was all the professional teams, and readers would mark which teams they thought were going to win the game and whoever won got a prize. I remember every Sunday sitting around the dining room table and we tallied the votes to see who won."

On more than one occasion, said Swanson, "on the day the paper was supposed to get to the post office, the (automatic) folder would break. So we would all go down and manually fold the newspapers."

In 1949, a six-month battle with valley fever prompted Jacobs to sell the Kingsburg Recorder, which he later bought back, along with the nearby Selma Enterprise. The intimate feel of the newspaper gave Jacobs easy access to the town's social engagements.

"I took part in more things than I would have otherwise," he said. Jacobs even had the honor of hosting the small Swedish town's bicentennial celebration, and when it was discovered that there was no ammunition for the fireworks, Jacobs used his own cigar to light the fuse.

Even when Kingsburg's population began to increase, Jacobs' commitment to the small newspaper he had always wanted never wavered. "The town grew, but the paper didn't change much."

The Recorder would go on to win a slew of awards from the California Newspaper Publisher's Association. Most notably, said Swanson, "they got best paper for its size, best front page, best community paper."

Jacobs' enthusiasm for his work would eventually inspire Swanson to pursue a master's degree in journalism at UC Berkeley.

Now a teacher and founder of San Diego's Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) education program, Swanson was originally excited about following in her father's journalistic footsteps, but later came to find that teaching was more suited to her tastes.

Today, Jacobs resides at Fallbrook's Silvergate retirement community, where he still keeps up-to-date on local and national news.

"I get the paper, and I still watch the TV news," he said.

Though Jacobs is now keen to let others do the reporting, he said he still acknowledges that there is no substitute for the friendly, intimate feel of the local news.

Contact staff writer Jennifer MacNeil at (760) 739-6671 or jmacneil@nctimes.com.

7/8/01