Pictures, a Park, and a Pulitzer
Mel Ruder and the Hungry Horse News
by Tom Lawrence
photography by Mel Ruder
published by Farcountry Press
- A weekly newspaper filled with local photographs was unheard of when Mel Ruder founded the Hungry Horse News in 1946 in a small Montana town just west of Glacier National Park. In his first issue, Ruder announced that he would emphasize positive news and publish plenty of photographs. The thirty-one-year-old Navy veteran marveled at this "promised land," reminding readers that "More than 200,000 Americans from all of the 48 states save their money for eleven-and-a-half months of the year in order to live two weeks where we live all the year...."
When a vast flood filled the area in 1964, Ruder photographed, interviewed, thumbed rides on small planes to get aerial views, printed the photos, and wrote the stories. His and his staff's efforts won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished General Local Reporting in 1965—the first Pulitzer given to a Montana newspaper.
This volume brings together a generous sampling of Mel Ruder's photography, a taste of his editorials, and the biography of the man behind the Hungry Horse News during its first thirty-two years of operation.
200 pages, 9 1/2'' x 11 3/4'', 254 b/w photos, 9 illustrations, 1 map(s), 20 softcovers per case, Smythe-sewn
softcover
ISBN 10: 1560371617
ISBN 13: 9781560371618
$9.95
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Tom Lawrence first met Mel Ruder in the summer of 1997, when the retired Hungry Horse News editor was gracious in his assistance to the paper's new managing editor. Lawrence is a native of Brookings, South Dakota, and has worked for newspapers in South Dakota, Texas, Oregon, and Montana, and won writing awards in all four states. He is the editor of Montana's Whitefish Pilot weekly newspaper. |