As the five huge rolls of blank paper are turned into the latest edition of the Victoria Gazette, the printed, cut, and folded newspapers are fed onto a conveyor belt where Todd and Donny and sometimes Del collect them and jog them into piles. 
This is like the high point of the morning as I grab two fresh issues off the conveyer belt and run with them to the nearby lunch room where Julianne and Germaine are visiting and reading other papers that Crow River prints.

Donny Voigt's position is Web Press Assistant.  He stacks and ties the Gazettes as they come off the counter-veyor belt.  Del Guthmiller is the Maintenance Supervisor who helps in the production process and in other areas.  Donny and Del always have big smiles for the editor of the Victoria Gazette.
So many of the people who work at Crow River Press wear different hats, and their jobs can be interchangeable depending on where they're needed.

Now that we've got 4,500 brand new issues of the Victoria Gazette on our hands, we've got to get them prepared for mailing.  The huge Mail Room is located next to the Press Room.
All the mailbags are hanging up and ready to be filled with labeled and presorted Gazettes.  That's my job, to hang up 40 mailbags on mailbag racks.  It's what I do as soon as I arrive at Crow River Press each month. 
Then I attach yellow "Do Not Delay" tags to each of the bags, and I put destination tags on each of the bags.  When full, they are about the size of hay bales, and they weigh about as much.
I've got two huge bags of Gazettes destined for Chaska subscribers, two huge bags for Excelsior subscribers, two huge bags for Chanhassen subscribers, and two huge bags for Waconia sub-scribers!
I've got smaller bags destined for subscribers at Cologne, Shakopee, Young America, Wayzata, Watertown, St. Boni, Mayer, Norwood, Maple Plain, Jordan, Carver, Eden Prairie, Minneton-ka, Mound, St. Paul, and Hopkins. 
Also, I've got huge bags tagged and destined for subscribers who live in "Outstate Minnesota" and one huge bag tagged and destined for subscribers who live in the other 49 states.
Oh, did I forget about the subscribers in Victoria?  No.  They rank first.  People with a Victoria mailing address receive the Gazette whether or not they want it, whether or not they subscribe to it.  It's not intended as a gift, however.  It's intended as an aid to communication and a purveyor of honest to God truth or consequences.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself here, because the bags are still empty!

Cindy Christensen, the Mail Room Supervisor, feeds Gazettes -- just hot off the press -- through the Labeler, a machine that cuts the individual mailing labels and glues them to the upper right hand corner of each newspaper, where I've left a space for them on the masthead.
Prior to this labeling, Cindy has updated the entire Gazette mailing for me according to the changes, additions, and deletions that I fax to her each month.  Every label is up to the minute, and expected to include nine-digit zip codes of the various addresses. 
Those few Gazettes without a nine-digit zip code on their mailing label sit in mailrooms around the country until postal delivery people get a round tuit.

The labeled Gazettes immediately drop onto a conveyor belt that brings them to Judy Ninneman, who picks up the papers, shuffles them neatly together in piles, and stacks them according to zip code.  The labels themselves are already sorted and attached in proper zip code order, so it's a matter of Judy watching for the well marked groupings.
Dan Krumrie works the Strapper, which is a machine that plastic-straps the bundles of Gazettes, and then he puts the bundles into my mailbags with the matching cities and zip codes.
Keith McLain continues to transport freshly printed Gazettes from the Press Room to the Mail Room until 2,400 issues have been labeled, stacked, and bagged for locations outside of Victoria. Approximately 1,700 bundled Gazettes are mailed direct to Victoria residents through boxes and routes, and I bring about 400 to local drop off locations.
Dan lifts the heavy mailbags into large hampers for me and rolls them into the back of my red pickup truck.  He also helps me move the dozens of heavy Victoria bundles into my truck.  The load barely fits.
By this time it's about 10: 30 a.m. and I'm ready to haul my baby to the Post Office Annex at Chanhassen, from whence they are distributed far and wide and in between.

With Crow River Press in my rear view mirror, the adrenalin has dissipated and energy waned.  I pick up a Whopper at Burger King before we leave Hutchinson. 
When I get home to Lilac Lane, usually by 12:30 p.m., it's time to succumb to the heavy sleep in my eyes.  Then I get up and start publishing the online version of the Victoria Gazette ... and do the billing ... and start all over again.  Such a vicious cycle!
It's been quite a ride, or should I say run?  It's been a press run every month for 25 years.  Thank you, Crow River Press, for your fine work, your assistance in so many ways, your kindness and hospitality.  Thank you, Mark, for explaining so much to me about the printing operation. 
Dozens of fun photographs of this pressing occasion can be viewed at www.VictoriaGazette.com in Sue's Album.  Click away and let it roll.  By the way, all those guys with the last name of Theis are, indeed, related to each other.