The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

IN AA pL hr A a Ey Ne ARUN HORAN RA RD LA PHOS Sa RSS SA SN El v os Who knows. Per Hvidsten might have been a star of stage and screen. He was a pretty fair actor as a young man, he'll tell you, and even tried out for a part in Norway's national theatre. 'He watched me perform, then 'told me that I showed definite promise." : "Over here," 'he smiled, "that's roughly equivalent to, 'Don't call us, we'll call you'." : That was 50 years ago, and despite a long, hard, and often obstacle-blocked struggle to make a living in the newspaper business, per faces his retirement with the same enthusiasm, determination, and optimism that pushed the young Norwegian ex-air force instructor to start a new printing business with a couple of dollars in his pocket and the shirt on his back. Discharged from the Norwegian Air Force in post-war . Per (Pete) Huidsten retires as STAR publisher Printers devil to pub POR'I PERRY TAR Ji PORT PERRY STAR -- Wednesday, Jan. 7, 1976 hol VL Py Ta 4 Ay SA i < ES 5 / STATIONERY NOUNCEMENTS Pete purchased building on Fraser St. in North Bay in May 1946 and started into business. Top photo shows exterior of building with Pete left and helper. Below he works ha Heidlebers press which he bought from a firm in Montreal for $2,000. During the past three weeks, the Star's editor, John Gast, and Peter Hvidsten have been prying facts out of "retired" Per Hvidsten to do the following feature story on the former owner-publisher. % : Reminicing done by Per during these weeks before his retirement was recorded on scraps of paper, in our minds and eventually recorded in a book, which soon gave us enough background to proceed with the following feature. What you are about to read has never been shown to Per, so as you read this he will be reading it for the first time also. : To keep this feature a secret from him as not easy and for that reason we appologize now if any of the below information in not quite correct, although we believe it to be so. printer revealed that he'd been had. The salesman had been dismissed a year before. Although the North Bay business was a struggle at best, he repeatedly declined offers by the Nuggest to work for them even though the offer included the top going rate at the time. } , He sold the first building at a moderate profit after two or three years, then moved into a second North Bay location where he operated for five or six years. It was a time of sacrifices, work, and more work, he recalls, a time of many days away from home, and late hours at night in the shop. But despite that, his wife, Leila, was behind him all the way, a factor he considers vital to his ability to keep it up in those years. "I couldn't have managed it without her," he said. With business a bit better, the Hvidstens were ready to persue their overall objective...a newspaper. . After Canada, he worked only three days for the Huntsville Forester before he realized that it could be the beginning of a rut he'd never escape from. Backed by knowledge and experience earned on the staff of his father's newspaper in Norway before the war, he started looking-for machinery to stock a North Bay printing shop. Every at that time, in 1946, he had already made up his mind that he'd eventually get back into the newspaper business...a dream he'd realized some seven years later with the purchase of the - Uxbridge weekly. Get Out Of Town The North Bay printing shop was a moderate success despite some ominous fore-warnings. For example, the shop he'd rented in North Bay wasn't ready for occupancy. In fact, it had been rented...at the same time...to a second party. He was forced to look for new accomodations, and with money borrowed, scrounged and scraped up from friends and a finance company, he purchased a shop. And then, there was the less than encouraging civic welcome provided by the then mayor of North Bay, who let the young Norwegian have it straight off the cuff. "Might as well get out of town now," he predicted solomonly, "because the (North Bay) Nugget'll run you out sooner or later." With money tight, he recalls ordering a much-needed stitching machine from a travelling salesman, an order accompanied with a good down payment. When the machine didn't arrive, inquiries by the new sending out feelers with salesmen, he heard the Uxbridge Times Journal was for sale, and decided to buy it. The sale of his building and business provided enough money to buy the Uxbridge paper, but wasn't enough to cover working capital. When he couldn't raise enough from friends, he tried another source. fas] His North Bay rivals, the North Bay Nugget. * Buys Uxbridge Times-Journal Impressed by the Hvidsten shop's performance, the Nugget didn't hesitate to back the Uxbridge operation...a loan that was repaid within seven months, a The Uxbridge Times-Journal grew a great deal during the time it was owned by the Hvidstens, Leila Hvidsten held down the editorial end of the business, revealing an obvious flair for writing. The Hvidstens introduced or expanded local news coverage, the use of pictures, as well as circulation and advertising. N Mr. Harold Cave, owner of the Uxbridge Times Journal until it was purchased by the Hvidsten's in January 1953. There are things, of course, that he'd rather forget about. : When he found himself with too little news material and advertising to fill the paper, former owner Harold Cave had a simple solution. "Run a blank page in the middle of the paper," said Cave, who was assisting the Hvidstens in the change-over period, "Nobody'll notice." So he did...and they didn't. Purchasing the Uxbridge newspaper brought Per (Pete) Hvidsten back to familiar territory, after a 10-year interruption. "I felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders as soon as I took over," he said. '"A newspaper was what I'd always wanted for I knew that work best." ; His experience and effort reflected in the growth of the paper. When he couldn't negotiate a suitable price for the Times-Journal building, he built a new one on land purchased from the town. The land is now back in the hands of the municipality, purchased complete with the building about a year ago as the municipal offices. - Building which housed the Times Journal until 1957 when the Hvidsten's built and new building. » ® LJ J oe 1 § i J 4 J L 78 J J] @ | [) 4 [ | ; | 1 ( o ® \ | | | I 1 @ ef ( é ) # of «"