MONROE, MI — For more than five decades, Monroe Evening News editor and president JS Gray traveled to every political convention with his portable typewriter.
The Hermes Rocket machine also helped Gray cover stories in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The Hermes Rocket was designed in Switzerland and was the world’s lightest typewriter of its day.
You can see Gray’s typewriter, his book of story clips and several other Monroe News artifacts at a new exhibit at the Monroe County Museum, 126 S. Monroe St. in Monroe.
“Chronicling History: From The Michigan Sentinel to The Monroe News” covers 200 years of the local newspaper.
The exhibit is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Labor Day, Sept. 1. Admission to the museum is free. During the 2025 Monroe County Fair, July 27-Aug. 2, the museum will display a panel exhibit on The Monroe News’ 200-year history.
The publication that became today’s Monroe News began as The Michigan Sentinel. It was first published on June 3, 1825, by Editor Edward D. Ellis. The paper has published under various names ever since.
For its two centuries of preserving Monroe County’s history, the Monroe County Museum System’s Board of Trustees recently selected The Monroe News to receive the 2025 Spirit of Service Connection Award in September, said Andrew Clark, museum director.
The Monroe News’ bicentennial exhibit was curated by Monroe County historian Lynn Reaume, who recently retired from the museum.
Providing artifacts for the display were former Monroe News staffers Jim Dombrowski, Barbara Krolak and Deborah Saul, along with Phil Marianacci, owner of 360 Digilab, which occupies the former Monroe News building on West First Street in downtown Monroe.
Also assisting in planning were former News employees Jeanine Bragg, Ruth Dombrowski, Janet Latondress, Marge McBee, Vicki Price and Emily Yates.
Artifacts on display include a gear from the old printing press, a road-side newspaper tube and photos of the West First Street newsroom before the extensive 2004 remodel. The exhibit also includes newspapers, like one from 1919 and another bearing the headline “Eisenhower will run.”
“These papers are Monroe County’s history. They held the personalities, the negative things, the positive. (Each day’s) will never be duplicated again,” Reaume said.
Also on display are some tools of the newspaper trade, like reporter notebooks and cameras. There also are several books.
Through the years, The Monroe News published works such as “Greetings from Monroe,” “Book of Fashion” and “Traces of Time,” which contains historic photos from The Monroe News and the Everette Payette Collection. An example of D.N. Roberts’ longtime feature “The Observer” also is on display.
A collection of 11 photos from the 1950s were preserved by former editor Saul. The photos tell “The Daily Miracle” of a newspaper’s production, from assigning stories to delivering the finished edition of the paper.
“The paper has been where the community has turned to learn about everything, from news about friends and relatives, what’s on sale at local stores and the price of eggs, to the big stories of the day, including tragedies, such as the 1997 crash of Comair Flight 3272 in Raisinville Township and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and triumphs, such as the 1987 crowning of Kaye Lani Rae Rafko as Miss America 1988 and local high school athletes’ victories at state championships,” said Krolak, who worked for The Monroe News for nearly 46 years, retiring July 1, 2020, as city editor.
“That history is what has driven the newspaper and its staff to persevere,” Krolak added. “It’s important to celebrate this achievement as the paper remains a part of the Monroe County community, even as times change. There are stories still to be told.”
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: New museum exhibit showcases 200 years of The Monroe News
Reporting by Suzanne Nolan Wisler, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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