Ann Arbor News Employee To Start 61st Year In Newspaper Work Tomorrow

(Caption under photograph) STARTS 61ST YEAR WITH THE NEWS: Herman A. Huhn, who has done about everything there is to do on the technical side of the newspaper business, tomorrow starts his 61st year as an employe of The News. Huhn, who started as a printer’s devil at the age of 14, plans to keep right on with his job as mark-up man for The News.

Plans To Stay At Job:
Ann Arbor News Employe To Start 61st Year In Newspaper Work Tomorrow

Herman A. Huhn tomorrow starts his 61st year in the employ of The Ann Arbor News. Barring something unforeseen, Herman—as he is known throughout the ranks of his fellow employe—plans to keep right on at his job on the newspaper, too.
Herman says he’s thought of retirement, “but I wouldn’t know what to do with my time.”
The small, grey-haired man of 74 has been working for The News longer than The News as such has been in existence, having started at the age of 14 with the old Ann Arbor Times, which, after a process of mergers, became The News.
He has seen moves of the plant from several buildings and has worked under more editors than he can remember. He can tick off the names of at least 10 who came and went through the years, but, as he says, “There must have been more.”
Huhn started as a printer’s devil, doing all sorts of odd jobs in the composing room. His starting pay was $1 a week, he remembers, but he says he got a $1 raise each six months for the first few years.
Huhn has done everything in the technical side of the newspaper business during his 60 years with The News. He has operated a linotype machine and worked as “mark-up” man, putting type into the page forms and setting advertisements up in type. He has also been called upon to run the presses.
Now, Huhn is called the mark-up man. His responsibility is to check over the incoming orders for display advertisements, marking the various lines for setting in the proper faces of type. Typesetters depend upon Huhn to know what kinds of type to use for each line of print.
When Huhn first began work, the paper had only one linotype machine which set only the small print for the editorial matter. All the rest of the type was hand-set. Now The News has 14 machines for setting all but the very largest sizes.
Huhn tells tales of the days when newsmen and printers were traditionally heavy drinkers, if not drunkards. He recalls one time when he, another man and the shop foreman were the only personnel to show up for work in the composing room. The other man was sent out to try to find the rest and bring them to work so that the paper could be published that day. The man didn’t return.
The foreman, doubting that Huhn could find the men, nevertheless sent him out. Huhn went to the nearest bar and there he found the men and brought as many as possible to work. He said they got the day’s editions of the paper out with little trouble.
Huhn’s father, a bartender, tried to discourage him from the trade telling him that printers “were all a bunch of bums, winking a few days and moving on,” but Huhn says his mother retorted: “What about bartenders?”
Huhn has no hobbies, he says, but likes to read. He reads almost anything ̶ books, magazines, and lots of newspapers. “I’ve got about 400 books at home that I bought when I was a lot younger, figuring I’d read them when I got older and wanted something to do. I’d better get started on them pretty soon, I guess.”
Huhn’s wife died in 1928 and he lives alone at 734 Fountain St. He has a son, E. Charles Huhn, who represents the H in the B and H Manufacturing Co. Another son, Robert, was killed in World War II.
A combination of reasons is responsible for keeping Huhn in Ann Arbor and at The News for 60 years. As he says, “I’ve always had a good job, made good money. I like Ann Arbor and football, so I’d have to come back every fall anyway.”