Kent Baker Fulfills a Childhood Dream

What would cause a successful television executive who'd spent the last 21 years in Hawaii to come back to his hometown in Iowa? For Kent Baker it was a childhood dream.

As a kid growing up in Moville, Iowa, (pop. 1,407) Baker, 52, dreamed of one day owning the weekly Moville Record. On April 1, 2000, Baker's dream came true when he bought the newspaper from Bedford and Donna Robinson, owners for the last 29 years.

"I'd been talking to Bedford about buying the newspaper since 1992 or 1993," Baker says. "I was very fortunate that he wanted to sell it to a local person and didn't shop it around, because I couldn't have outbid the chains."

Baker attributes his love of writing and newspapers to his mother, Miriam Baker Nye, who wrote a column about farm life for the Sioux City Journal for nearly 30 years. The death of Baker's father in a 1970 car accident led her to write But I Thought He'd Never Die: Practical Help for Widows, a book in print for 21 years. She died in 1999 at the age of 80.

In high school, Baker was both editor of the school paper and sports writer for the Record. "I played football, and after a game I'd write it up," he says. "I always thought owning the paper would be fun. Even then, I knew I liked the impact a newspaper could have on a community."

In the 1960s, Baker edited the newspaper at Iowa State University and after college he joined the Des Moines Register staff, took some time off to work with the Peace Corps, and in 1970 became news director for a Moline, Ill., television station owned by the Register's publishing company.

That was his springboard to KHON-TV in Honolulu in 1979 where he was news director and eventually general manager. Printer's ink remained in his blood, however, and he never lost sight of owning the Record.

One of Baker's first acts after buying the paper was to triple the staff. He kept on the Robinsons, who used to publish the paper by themselves, added Bobbie Wahlberg as general manager, Sandra Evans as production manager, and Blake Stubbs, an aspiring journalism student, as sports editor.

The newspaper and the schools are the two elements the residents of Moville, most of whom work in nearby Sioux City, have in common, Baker says. "The newspaper makes an impact by keeping them informed about their community," says Baker. The Record, which serves Moville and four other communities in Woodbury County, is a great booster of the schools, giving extensive coverage to school events, student achievements, and sports.

Tom Cooper, Woodbury Central Community School District superintendent, is pleased how the newspaper covers school events and adds that he sees the paper becoming a public forum for ideas. "Kent wants to write his opinion, but he wants everybody else to get their opinion in, too," Cooper says. "He wants this to be a community paper."

Baker sees the paper as a tool to promote important community projects. Months after taking over ownership, he became an enthusiastic supporter of a proposed downtown redevelopment project. The project ultimately could mean a new city hall and community center, and possibly a new police station.

"It will be good because I think it will spark some redevelopment downtown," he says. "We're growing along the highways, but our downtown has been left to decay. I think the paper has the potential to help move this project along."

Baker works seven days a week, which includes time he spends consulting with television news departments for his former employer. That takes him occasionally to Honolulu where he still owns a house, but, thanks to communication technology, most of his consulting work is done from Moville.

He may be working harder than ever, but Baker at last is living his childhood dream.

"Every Thursday, when the paper goes out, I get a rush of adrenaline having a newspaper do what I want it to," he says. "There were 100 people working at the TV station and 1,000 working at the Register. I didn't have a feeling of ownership. This is mine."

Leanna Skarnulis is a freelance writer in Omaha, Neb.

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