A man who was one of the driving forces in the creation of the Tribune in 1968 was posthumously inducted last week into the Ontario Community Newspaper Association Hall of Fame.
Wayne Green began his career at the Timiskaming Printing Company in New Liskeard in 1951 and a decade later moved to Kapuskasing to become the first managing editor and the first full-time employee at the new Northern Times newspaper in Kapuskasing.
In 1968 the owners of the Northern Times, led by Sturgeon Falls native Rene Piche, decided to establish a weekly newspaper in Sturgeon Falls.
The following excerpt from his 2014 biography, “The Last Newspaperman – Recalling a proud lifetime of journalism in Northern Ontario”, Wayne Green wrote “The Tribune was launched on January 17 as a joint venture with Rod Blais, a well-known Sturgeon resident (and father of Liberal cabinet minister Jean-Jacques Blais) who was appointed managing editor. Although his name appeared on the masthead along with Rene’s as publisher, in practical terms production of the new weekly became my responsibility right from the start.
The first issue was laid out on Rod’s living room table and the material rushed to Kapuskasing on Monday for typesetting via a five-hour car ride I took over a snowy Highway 11. The camera-ready pages were delivered to the press plant in Val d’Or, Tuesday night, along with the Northern Times pages, and the finished copies were put on an Air Canada flight to North Bay on Wednesday morning. A Tribune staffer picked up the papers and made the short drive back to Sturgeon Falls for afternoon distribution around the West Nipissing area.
