Longtime journalists Bob Johnson and Susan Lynn will be inducted into the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame on Nov. 3.
Johnson devoted 56 years to the Register, serving as sports editor, city editor and reporter. He retired in 2020.
Johnson figures he wrote about 2,400 “At week’s end” columns during his tenure. His guiding light was “Everyone has a story. Stopping a person on the street can generate an interesting article.”
Career highlights included visiting Central America five times in the 1990s — Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Belize (twice) — to cover humanitarian projects assigned to the Kansas National Guard’s 891st Engineers headquartered in Iola.
In 2001, Johnson spent 10 days in France with a group led by a military history instructor at Fort Leavenworth. That trip resulted in a 10-part series about the June 6, 1944 Normandy Invasion.
In 2000, Johnson won the first Kansas Farm Bureau Golden Wheat Award for reporting on agriculture.
In 2019, he was honored with the Gaston Outstanding Mentor Award.
During his tenure, Angelo Scott, Emerson Lynn and Susan Lynn served as publishers.
OTHER THAN as a high school and college staffer, Lynn officially began at the Register in 2000 and became editor and publisher in 2001.
For 13 of those years, she worked alongside her father, Emerson Lynn.
“When he died in 2013, I realized all those years he was grooming me for that eventuality. And sure enough, the newspaper continues to thrive,” she said.
In 2018, Lynn’s son, Tim Stauffer, and his wife, Violeta, joined the Register staff, as managing editor and marketing director, respectively.
“Like my dad, my goal is to keep the paper healthy for future generations,” Lynn said. “Though the industry challenges seem far greater today, so is our purpose. Keeping people in the know is what weaves the fabric of a community. We are fact-checkers and observers. Promoters and consolers.
“And yes, at times, it is our duty to stir the fire in everyone’s belly, believing only an empowered society can best serve.”
To her immense pride, the Register staff has garnered the Sweepstakes Award for the last five years in the annual Awards of Excellence competition sponsored by the Kansas Press Association. The entries include both news and advertising categories. The competitions are judged by peers in other states. This year’s was judged by Missouri journalists.
