WILL TOWNSLEY

WILL TOWNSLEY was born in Great Bend thirty-four years ago, went through the schools there, and served an apprenticeship on his father's paper, the Tribune. He acted as collector, while a boy, for a small daily, the Evening News, which he published in the nineties. After graduation from the local high school he went to Washburn College, Topeka. While there he had a paper route on the State Journal, and was there for nearly three years, when he returned to Great Bend to take charge of the Tribune and get his first real experience. His father's health was failing, and some one had to take charge of things. For a time his mother had charge of the office. Later he took the management of the paper. He also worked an engraving plant for a couple of years, working nights and making cuts for job work and the paper.

About 1908, while there were two other offices in Great Bend, both of them with weekly and daily, he got a chance to buy the other Republican weekly and daily, and did so. Then the second daily turned over its business to him. He has been gradually enlarging and improving the Tribune until it is one of the best small-town dailies in the West. It has been Republican in politics, and thinks more of the short local than of the long editorial.

Mr. Townsley is married and has two children, a daughter four years old and a son younger.

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