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Norma Hannaford
Hatteberg's People
Reporter: Larry Hatteberg
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March 18, 2007--You hear people say ‘keep working’ no matter how old you are.
Norma Hannaford of Marion took that to heart.
Almost every town has a water tower….every town has a main street. But no other town has a reporter like
Norma Hannaford. |
“Well, the hardest part is to think…what am I going to write?”
At 103 she is a columnist for the Marion County Record. She began working for them when she was younger….at 96.
“I knew a lady up at Salina who had done it from a nursing home and I thought maybe if she can do it, I can do it.
Her boss is Marion County Record editor Donna Bernhardt; “You can pretty much set your watch by her. Her stuff will be here on Monday regardless.
She is a voracious reader and she knows everything about Marion.”
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Norma knows everything that’s going on in her community, but doesn’t have much use for a larger town.
“I wouldn’t know how to act in a big town like Wichita.”
She writes about anything…she feels like writing about…
“They say…keep going, keep going, we like it. It’s the first thing we read in the paper.” |
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(Donna Bernhardt) “And then there are those who follow her because she is willing to review the books that she is reading. She will tell you whether they are good or if they are not any good.”
“I’m up to date. I’m old, but I’m up to date.”
She also reviews books like Calvin Trillin’s ‘About Alice’, a book about Trillin losing his wife. Nora says the book is ‘a wonderful tribute to her.’ People like her book reviews.
“I get stirred up about something and I think, well I’m going to say something about that.”
And there was another column about what teachers should wear....she writes “evidently some of the teachers in Wichita dress pretty casually.”
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“I’m just being me…I don’t know..that’s just it.”
Norma was a bit embarrassed about all this publicity. As she writes in her kitchen longhand on a yellow pad…she was concerned that her kitchen was too messy to be photographed. It wasn’t. |
But that’s when she told me that she thought that perhaps she would rather have surgery than talk to Larry
Hatteberg.
“I used to think I wanted to be in the movies. But now I think I don’t want to.”
I think she was joking….
At this little newspaper in Marion Norma Hannaford’s Random Thoughts column is special. At 103 in her home surrounded by pictures of her travels, this woman of words is still working.
“I suppose because of all this reading I do and I travel a lot. I’ve been to Europe about four or five times, been to China and I have a curiosity for people and places. |
(Donna Bernhardt) “She’s a fabulous lady and I just think she’s a real draw for the editorial page for Marion.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. All those kind words are very nice for an old lady.” |
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