From Picas to Bytes: Four Generations of Seacrest Newspaper Service to Nebraska

By Faith A. Colburn

Second-place winner in the Nebraska Press Women's adult nonfiction book category. If you want to know how a newspaper can serve a community, here is how it is done. This family memoir reveals a family of early adopters who used technological innovation to keep a mid-sized daily newspaper in business while many others closed their doors. But the Seacrest newspaper legacy reaches far beyond keeping a newspaper in business. It also includes strong First Amendment protections supported by the belief that the people have a right to know what their government does in their name. It involves tireless work to make Lincoln economically sound and safe, a good place to raise a family. And there were those innovations, not just in technology, but also in labor relations and in community development. From Picas to Bytes chronicles more than 100 years of untiring dedication to First Amendment protections, community building, and technological innovation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faith A. Colburn
• Release date: Sep 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311719805

Faith A. Colburn

Faith Colburn is a sixth-generation Nebraskan with a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her book, THRESHOLD: A MEMOIR, took the outstanding thesis in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities award at UNK for 2012 and she received UNK’s Outstanding Work in Fiction Award during its 2009 student conference and several awards from the Nebraska Federation of Press Women.Her short fiction has appeared in Kinesis magazine and The Platte Valley Review and her poetry has been published in The Reynolds Review. As a public information officer for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, she wrote numerous articles for NEBRASKAland magazine, including copy for photo essays and historical articles. She also gained intimate knowledge of the landscape that often appears as a character/catalyst in her work.Ms. Colburn has spent several years gathering oral family histories and biographies, including a 100-year memoir of the Lincoln newspaper publishing family, with an emphasis on their use of production technology. During a stint with the University of Nebraska’s Research and Extension Center as a communication specialist, she focused some of her research efforts on the history of a farm family in western Nebraska that amassed 10,000 acres of land over several generations in drought-prone high plains region. As a communications specialist for a Lutheran social ministry organization, she spent five years telling the stories of people with developmental disabilities. Those efforts helped her learn about the glue that holds families and communities together and the wedges that drive them apart. She has drafted a fiction collection that mirrors the true experiences of people she’s known.

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