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After 25 years at the Star still enjoys work It's Monday, the most dreaded days of all days here at the Port Perry Star, and as usual, 56 year old Annabell Harrison is the first to arrive for work. At 7:00 a.m. she opens the back door and punches in, knowing she won't see daylight again that day. On an average Monday, Anna- bell will work straight through until at least 10 p.m. although there are days she won't arrive home until well past midnight. Tirelessly, without complaint, she slogs through the day, eating her lunch as she proofs classified ads, or shoots pages. Sometimes, she'll pause at dinnertime for 15 minutes, but not always. And while everyone else at the Star knows Annabell is indispens- able, no one can easily describe what it is she does. One thing's for sure, she does the work of at least two people. She runs the darkroom, shooting PMTs and pages. She proofs ads, she pastes up the classified sec- tion. She makes up mailing sten- cils and prepares for mailing the next day. And no matter how late she works on Mondays, she's always back at the Star office by 7 a.m. to take the finished pages to Bow- manville for printing. When she returns from Bow- manville with the newspapers, she spends four more hours in the mailing room, lifting heavy mail- bags. : She does these things, but she does so much more. Annabell is the backbone of production day at the Star. She keeps an eye out for all the little things that can go wrong, there- . fore making them run smoothly. It's Annabell, for example, who reminds others to fill the waxing machine with fresh wax. It's Annabell who catches spelling errors others have missed. At 8 o'clock in the morning, when the office is still closed, An- nabell will stop what she's doing to answer the phone and take down information for an ad. No one else bothers to do this. Every- one else says, make 'em wait until we're open. But not Annabell. She takes pride in her work, to the point where she sometimes # r Ss) drives other staffers crazy. "Don't fold the copy when you're pasting it up," she's said. "Wipe all the wax off your pho- tos or you'll get black marks on them," she's said. Annabell knows all the tricks to make each issue of the Star the best it can be. Like a ghost, she hovers over the shoulders of each and every staff member on the production day team, making sure everything is done right. Even if she is not physically present, eve- ryone feels her presence, and tries to live up to her standards. This photo of Annabell and BIll Harrison was tak- en at at Star staff party in December 1967. Anyone else on the team can go away on vacation and not be terri- bly missed. But not Annabell. A is only when she is away, that others on the team realize ex- actly how much work Annabell y does. If and when Annabell ever re- tires, it will be practically impos- sible to replace her. Publisher Pe- ter Hvidsten is not looking forward to that day. "It's something I've contemplat- ed for a number of years," he says. "Initially, I don't know, to be very SE EE : & Comma Podrrses; i sos Bear itd Chr oF oy Tn | - Annabell Harrison was presented an award for 20 years of service to the Port Perry Star In September 1983. Above, publisher Peter Hvidsten presents the plaque to long-time employee and freind Annabell. honest, what I'll do. "It's not that nobody is irre- placeable, but after being here for 5 years, she has such a varied knowledge of what goes on in this operation. We're not going to be able to replace that knowledge. "We can replace the body," he adds, "but not that knowledge." Jokingly, Peter says, "I intend to retire before she does so I don't have to face that." This year, Annabell marks her Silver Anniversary at the Port Perry Star. She has put in more years in this office than her boss, Peter Hvidsten. She has worked for Peter's fa- ther, the late Per Hvidsten, and has seen so many editors come and go, that it's hard to count how many she's worked with. There is one editor, however, she has never lost sight of--her 57 year old husband, Bill. Bill Harrison actually worked at the Port Perry Star long before Annabell, and long before he even met his future bride. He was 15 or 16 years old when he started working after school as "printer's devil" for Sam Farmer. It was Bill's job to wash and clean the presses every day after school and on Saturdays. He was paid $8 a week. When Bill was 19, Sam offered him a full-time job, and Bill still remembers what the late publisher said--"You've hit the big time now!" And with that Sam gave Bill a raise--$12 a week. "He (Samuel Farmer) was a wonderful guy," Bill recalls. "He was a great guy to work for, and a good man to teach." It was a big shock to him, and to the entire community, when Sam died, but Bill stayed on, working for the Boyd family, un- til he was offered a job at General Printers in Oshawa, and left. The job was in sales, and it wasn't too long before Bill real- ized sales wasn't for him. "I didn't like what I was doing," so he quit, and went back to work for the Boyds. But it wasn't to be for too long. Once again, he was tempted by another offer, left, and spent five years as editor of an newspaper in Colborne. While working there, he attend- ed a newspaper convention in Re- gina, where he bumped into Per Hvidsten (affectionately remem- bered as Pete Sr.). At the time, Per was publisher of the Uxbridge Times Journal. The two hit it off, and four years later, when Per pur- chased the Port Perry Star from the Boyd family, he asked Bill to come back to the Star as editor. Bill and Annabell had met at the Caesarea dance hall ("everyone went there," Annabell recalls) when Bill was forced to change Annabell's car tire--twice. Obviously his mechanical skills impressed Annabell, and they mar- ried October 26, 1956. Kim was born a year later, at which time Annabell left her job with General Motors for good. This year, Annabell and Bill will celebrate their 32nd wedding annv . In 1963, when Kim was seven, Annabell got a phone call that shaped the rest of her life. "They phoned me and asked me to work part-time at the Star, run- ning errands and all sorts of stuff," she says. That part-time "gofer" position soon turned into plenty of hours in the Star office, as Annabell learned more and more about the old letterpress or hot metal pro- duction of the newspaper. PORT PERRY STAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE -- Tuesday, Septcmber 20, 1988 -- 21 Annabell and BIll Harrison have given over 40 years of service to the Port Perry Star, Bill starting when he was a teenager, and Annabell working for the past 25 years at 235 Queen Street. The couple reminice about their years at the Star In this article written by Cathy Olliffee for this 25th Anniversary is- sue since the paper was sold by the Farmer family. Soon after Per purchased the Star, however, hot lead went the way of the dinosaur. Bill recalls, "He just continually started changing things." Annabell says, "First thing he did was put in a new furnace!" But the biggest change Per made was switching from hot metal to offset printing. Offset means the paper is pasted up, literally using paper and wax, shooting the pages with a large camera, and sending the negatives elsewhere for print- ing. The last letterset paper hit the stands June 8, 1967. The first off- set paper was produced, with back-breaking labour, on June 15. Bill will never forget that pro- duction day. "Pete Sr. and I worked all day and all night long on that first pa- per," he recalls. The new produc- tion style was suppo to be more versatile and easier, but on that first issue, Bill admits, "We didn't know what we were doing." They finished the last page at 5 a.m. and then shipped it down to Toronto to be printed. It was the first issue of the Star to be printed somewhere other than the Star building on Queen Street. It was also the first issue in a reduced tabloid form, the present size of the newspaper. By changing over to offset pro- duction at that time, Per Hvidsten developed a name as a pioneer. Few other newspapers in those days were working offset. Per sct a precedent that has con- tinued in the 25 years the Hvid- sten family has owned the Star, constantly breaking ground in the use of new technology. Bill left the Star 14 years ago to work at Alger Press in Oshawa (where he is still employed), but Annabell stayed here workin long hours, many times wit daughter Kim by her side if no ba- bysitter was to be found. She was involved in many big printing contracts, including the publication of the World Day of Prayer service pamphlet--with a run of 250,000 copies. She started out stitching the little books to- ether g A "And then it started snowball- ing.' she remembers. he worked on another job, the Philatelist, a stamp magazine. She helped out with racing pro- grams for the Orono Friday night races There were times when she worked 14 days and 14 nights without a break at all; She worked her heart out, learn- ing something new with every job, keeping abreast of the wave of new technology. Gradually, Annabell became a fixture at the Port Perry Star. By the time Peter Hvidsten Jr. took over as publisher, Annabell was as much a part of the newspaper, as the ink itself. "Annabell is a very valuable part of this operation," Peter says. She's been an extremely hard worker, and willing over the years. Basically nothing you ask 1S too much. She'll always rally to the cause. I don't know of any other 56 year old woman that slugs 50 to 75 pound mail bags and never complains. "I have a deep affection for the woman that goes beyond the newspaper. An admiration for her stamina." Annabell herself can't really be- lieve she has worked here for 25 years, although there are days-- perhaps at midnight on a Monday, perhaps while she's slugging those mail bags--when she can be- licve it. : But for the most part, Annabell says she enjoys her job. Some days it doesn't even feel like I've been here that long," she muses. Perhaps it's because, as much as Annabell has become an inegral part of this newspaper, the news- paper has also become a part of er.