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RED WING, Minn. — Growing up, Robin Wipperling could keep track of her dad in the newspaper.

Her father, Forest M. Wipperling, was sheriff in Goodhue County from 1987 to 1999.

"We have all these newspapers, and when dad passed away, you know, we still look back," said Wipperling, who now works as executive director of the Goodhue County Historical Society. "When we have questions, then we go back to the newspapers."

Her father's career was followed in the local newspaper — the Republican-Eagle — long before he became sheriff. The family collected articles from when he was a patrol officer in the 1950s, when he became a captain, then Red Wing's police chief from 1980 to 1986, and, eventually, ran for and was elected sheriff.

"So these articles are precious to our family, and the grandkids now go back and we'll read them," Wipperling said. "You know, that's history for them to read about Grandpa. And if we didn't have that, we wouldn't have recorded all that. We wouldn't have had any means to document what he was involved in in the community. That's the only place it was coming from, these reporters."

Open up an old newspaper from 100 years ago — and by "open up," that means get the microfilm or look them up at the Minnesota Historical Society's — and you'll see what life was like in 1923.

On April 5, 1923, front-page news in The Kenyon News ranged from actions taken by the village council — $650 to support the local band, replacing the city marshal — people who'd bought and received delivery of new Ford cars within the past 10 days, and a fire at the home of R.L. Cornwall.

While these news items might seem commonplace even today, the front page told stories of travel, including how Faribault-based Dr. A. M. Hanson's trip to Paris to take a post-graduate course at the Pasteur Institute for the next couple months, and the comings and goings of regular citizens and their relatives.

"Mr. and Mrs. Walter Andrist and family visited friends and relatives in Minneapolis over Sunday. Miss Frances Sale of St. Pail is visiting her sister, Mrs. Haagen Holien, east of Dennison."

Liz Schmidt, archivist at the Goodhue County Historical Society, said newspapers commonly ran birth announcements. Obituaries ran freely, which is unheard of in today's newspapers.

Of course, the comings and goings of residents were only a part of what filled newspapers 100 years ago or more. There were recipes, news of national and international issues and events, coverage of local news — the fire and council doings in Kenyon — were all part of the news of the day that became the historical record.

But Schmidt and Wipperling have both noticed that less and less news, less and less history, comes their way with each passing year.

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Schmidt pointed to the big events of 2020 — the COVID pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement that came to Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. As much as those events were in the news, she wondered what is getting lost.

"What are the things that are not in the newspapers?" Schmidt asked. "What are the voices that aren't being told in the newspapers, and how are we documenting those?"

An oral history project to collect some of those stories about the impact of COVID ran into trouble, Wipperling said, because not many people volunteered to write their own stories.

"They don't know what to write," she said. "We were not getting people to respond and give things to us."

Minnesota is losing newspapers, said Lisa Hills, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Association. Much of that is due to consolidation. In fact, a showed that every county in Minnesota — except Grant County — has a newspaper.

Hills said that while the numbers have dropped — and the number of journalists in those newsrooms has dropped — Minnesota's communities are still being covered by newspapers.

"The numbers don't tell the story of what is happening," she said. Still, even with much of Minnesota served by daily or at least weekly newspapers, it's not the same. "The history of the community is no longer being reported. A newspaper is in a community reporting on the sad news, the happy news, the local government news. A newspaper shares the sense of a community."

When there are fewer resources around, things do get missed. It can be something as personal as the obituary of a friend's parents or something as community-supportive as a championship game for the local high school.

"You don’t get the story and the photos that go along with that," Hills said.

Mark Peterson has been a journalist for decades, graduating with a degree in mass communications from then-Mankato State University in 1980. Today, and for the past 22-plus years, he's worked at the Stewartville Star, where he serves as the weekly newspaper's editor. Of course, he wears more than one hat.

Peterson is the newspaper's main reporter. The publisher doubles as the sportswriter and editor. One other person works on circulation and subscriptions. That's the staff compared to when he started, when there were six employees.

Time has brought many changes, Peterson said. People used to come in with hand-written notes or to drop off letters. Now, the much more impersonal email is the point of contact for most readers.

"In some ways, email makes things easier," Peterson said. "But it's kind of less personal. People would come in with a letter that's typewritten and want to talk to you about it."

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin

Losing that personal touch is only part of the problem. When newspapers stop covering the community with the same thoroughness as in the past, things get missed.

Peterson worries about the government watchdog aspect of newspapers when no one is going to the city council or school board meetings for every town, every school district.

"That's one of the big concerns. That's why it's so sad to see a community newspaper go down," Peterson said, referring to the loss of the newspaper in Byron a few years ago. "Who's going to hold the city or school district accountable for how they spend their money?"

Peterson said, of course, there are minutes from government meetings, and anyone can access those documents online. But meeting minutes don't seem to tell the story of how a decision was made and why.

"As a journalist, a big part of it is being a storyteller," he said. "It's the city's history. At the same time, you're trying to dig for the truth on whatever the topic is. When that goes away, that's a huge void."

Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin