By John Marshall
HAVEN – Alfers, 69, owner-publisher of the Rural Messenger and a longtime Kansas newspaper executive, died Friday, April 29, at his home in Haven. He had battled pancreatic cancer.
Alfers, who established the Rural Messenger in August 2004, had been a strong but quiet presence in the Kansas newspaper industry for more than 40 years. With the Rural Messenger, a weekly based in Haven, he built a successful niche publication that underscored agriculture, its business, farm and ranch life and the rapid cross currents of a rural economy.
The Rural Messenger’s peak circulation reached thousands of readers through the middle third of Kansas, from Nebraska into Oklahoma and from Abilene through Hays. In a time that marked a decline in newspapers, especially local publications, the Rural Messenger published successfully in print and online – ruralmessenger.com – and with an aggressive presence on Facebook.
Alfers stressed the business side of newspapering but held deep convictions for local news. A strong and successful sales staff ensured that the paper stayed profitable, supporting the work of columnists and correspondents throughout the paper, often 20 pages or more.
He believed that advertising itself could be a form of news. In the Rural Messenger, the displays were often bold, attractive, colorful and informative, stories in themselves, telling the price and cost of doing business in agriculture today. Large advertisements for estate sales, often a full page, were in themselves chronicles of lives and what they had worked for, saved and earned.
“The first mission of a newspaper is to make money so it can stay alive,” he had said, “but it doesn’t have to be dull about it.”
Alfers was an editor with regional reach but devoted time to local elective service as mayor of Haven from 2011-2015.
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Alfers enrolled at Friends University, graduated in 1980 and began a long career with the Harris Newspaper Group in 1981 as circulation manager at The Salina Journal.
At that time, the Harris Group owned and operated 12 newspapers and six radio stations in six states, including eight newspapers in Kansas; the largest in Kansas were The Journal and The Hutchinson News.
In 1986, Alfers was named general manager of The Journal and three years later became business manager for the Harris Group. He directed management of the Group’s central accounting, data processing, benefits administration and computer system support, and served on committees that managed the corporation’s investments and profit sharing trusts.
(Thirty years later the Group would be dissolved, much of it sold to GateHouse Media, now operating as Gannett.)
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Duane Schrag, a former reporter, editor and tech wizard, now of Abilene, is evidence of Alfers’ way of management, which was to trust his employees.
In the mid-1990s, Schrag moved from the newsroom at Hutchinson to the computing rooms of Alfers’ business division. This involved early, pre-Internet technology at that time, and Alfers advocated experimentation. Schrag was encouraged to help take the science of business data aggregation into the newsroom; his work prompted something new, allowing reporters and editors to share stories using a form of the business data process.
“This was precisely the kind of innovation Mike fostered through his trust in employees and willingness to give them the autonomy they needed to succeed,” Schrag recalled.
In a short time, Alfers ensured that Schrag was accepted into the Harris management training program to become one of the Group’s editor-publishers. “I have no idea what he did or said, but … the opening arrived, I was accepted, and life never was the same after.”
It was vintage Mike, he said. Alfers hired good people and then got out of their way.
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By the late 1990s, Alfers grew concerned about the encroaching and predatory presence of hedge funds in newspapering and left the Harris Group. He started a consulting business, a manager for hire, working with newspapers or newspaper groups to reinvigorate them, put them back in the black. He once spent so much time on a project in Alabama for the Boone Newspapers that he had to re-register his Toyota, later returning to Kansas with Alabama tags.
In 2002 and 2003, he coordinated his work with the U.S. Government to set a framework for establishing a free press in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the 1992-95 ethnic wars in the western Balkans. He worked in Bosnia, returned to Kansas and started a newspaper, published in Bosnia for Bosnian refugees in America. It was printed in Junction City, and with wide distribution in the northern and eastern United States.
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Alfers was devoted to his brand of local journalism but found time for other pursuits. He was an avid fly fisherman and was known to drop circulation reports or ad revenue projections, pack up and head west to scout the streams of southern or western Colorado. He savored special times with his children, nieces and nephews at Camp Wood.
And he was never far from connecting with former colleagues in the Harris Group. Among his close friends for years were Fred Vandegrift, retired editor of The Salina Journal, Lloyd Ballhagen, the Group’s retired chairman and CEO, and Dick Buzbee, retired editor of The Hutchinson News.
Vandegrift lived in Wichita. Ballhagen and Buzbee were in Hutchinson. Haven was near, and they met often for lunch or dinner. From that evolved the annual August birthday luncheon for Ballhagen.
Then came Alfers’ plans for an annual holiday dinner, early December, at Christmas time to include other former Harris employees living nearby. The “Harris ex-pats,” (as they were called) and their spouses often numbered more than a dozen, gathering at restaurants in Wichita, Hutchinson, and Lindsborg.
As older colleagues died – Vandegrift in 2016, Buzbee in 2018, and Ballhagen in 2020 – Alfers was determined to keep the holiday tradition alive, and new “ex-pats” and friends were invited to the holiday table.
“He was generous to a fault underwriting the numerous dinners that friends enjoyed together several times a year,” said Roger Verdon of Lindsborg, a former managing editor of The Hutchinson News. “Mike was always the perfect host. He made sure the seating at our dinners was just right and he kept his eye on the service.”
“He could talk about anything,” said Verdon’s wife, Norma. “We once spoke about our cars. We both had sports cars in our past and his was fancier than mine but he knew everything. He was a gentle man, always looked spiffy, dressed appropriately – and he was handsome.”
“We hardly ever spoke about his business, which was operated just as you would expect Mike to operate, very successfully,” Verdon said. “He was a first-rate businessman from his time at Harris to the Rural Messenger. Mike’s success was printed in the Rural Messenger every week. We see newspapers all around us failing and here’s a weekly that knows how to serve its customers and readers.”
The casual observer or reporter might describe Mike Alfers as “medium” – medium height, medium build, medium weight, brown hair, close-cropped. Alfers was anything but medium, and nothing about what he did was medium. He believed in people, inspired their inventions, and trusted their findings.
“He was strong-willed, confident but ruthlessly realistic, always looking for the new angle,” Schrag said. “And kind. Fair. Generous. I am deeply grateful to have known him.”
When Vandegrift died six years ago, Alfers wrote to his widow and daughters in the obituary guestbook:
“After the passage of time, you would think memories of Fred, and his indelible impression on all of our lives, would wane a bit.
“It doesn’t.
“He’s with me and you and all of those he touched, forever. We are all better people for it, for having lived life within his realm.
“This is apparently how it’s supposed to be. We all carry one another forward, in life and death. I’m happy for it.”
Ditto, Mike Alfers.
Harold Michael Alfers was born December 19,1952, in St. Joseph, Mo. He married Dena Perkins on August 14, 1971 (they later divorced), and served in the U.S. Air Force from 1971-1975, including assignment in Madrid, Spain.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Harold and Catherine Alfers, two brothers, Patrick Alfers and Curtis Alfers, and a sister, Jacque Jacobs.
Survivors include trusted companion Shadow, two daughters, Tonya Alfers, of Decatur, Ga., Trisha (Jason) Cuda, of Avondale Estates, Ga., and a son, Michael (Teresa), St. Cloud, Fla.; two sisters, Vickie (Rich) Ewoldsen, Linwood, KS and Judy (Jon) Henry, Oskaloosa, KS; Sister in law Rhonda Alfers and Kathy Alfers. Brother in law Jake Jacobs. Grandchildren Perkins Alfers, Mateo Alfers, Aidyn Cuda, and Scarlett Cuda.
Friends may call from 9AM-8PM, Thursday May 12, 2022 at Elliott Mortuary. The casket will be closed.
Graveside Services at 2:00 PM at Sego Cemetery, in Rural Reno County, KS on Friday May 13, 2022.
All are encouraged to join the family for a Celebration of Life dinner and reception following services at YMCA Camp Wood, Elmdale, KS.
Memorials in lieu of flowers are suggested to Ark River Pheasants Forever Inc/ Quails Forever Inc., in care of Elliott Mortuary & Crematory, 1219 North Main, Hutchinson, KS 67501.
