Laura Yocham received an award for her 10 years of service to Herff Jones only days before the company, following corporate orders, announced that it would be leaving Iola for good and that its nearly 80 local employees would be let go.
“With Herff Jones closing,” said Yocham, “I was just like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ I enjoyed what I did, I enjoyed who I worked with. It was pretty decent pay for around here. And I didn’t want to go back to a factory. I didn’t want to go back to nights.”
But Yocham didn’t have to wonder long about her next job. Within weeks of the Herff Jones announcement, and before her last day at the plant, Yocham had signed on as the new print shop manager at the Iola Register.
Yocham, who arrives at the Register on the winds of a stellar reputation as a machine operator, will combine her mechanical talents with the chance to engage in more design-oriented work.
She anticipates a steady local market for stationary, invitations, order forms and the like. “I don’t want to see something like this shut down,” Yocham said of the century-old print shop, “I really just want to help it grow. … There’s a lot to learn, for sure, but I’ll get there. Once I get going, there is a lot of stuff I think would be cool to do up here.”
And Yocham isn’t one to shrink from high volume. “At Herff Jones sometimes, in a 10-hour-day, I would do 100, 110 jobs. I like to see how much I can get done in a day. I always try to beat my own record.”
What Yocham calls “icing on the cake” is the chance to work non-factory hours in a more relaxed setting. Prior to Herff Jones, the 36-year-old worked for two years at Haldex — before that plant, too, packed up.
“In a factory, for one thing, there’s no sunlight. Up here,” said Yocham, indicating the necklace of windows surrounding the top floor of the Register building, “at least I can see the sky.”
Yocham lives with her husband, Darrell; 8-year-old son, Logan; four dogs — Bell, Chipper, Biscuit and Peanut; a handful of chickens; and a bevy of hand-raised pheasants “out past the big blue water tower” north of Iola.
But it’s the promise of extra time with her son that Yocham values the most. “Actually, Logan is the one who’s the most excited for this job, because I get to take him to school now and because maybe he thinks it’s going to be easier on me.”
Yocham replaces the Register’s previous pressman, Kevin Swepston, who after nine years managing the print loft, died late last month.
Yocham brings skills to Register Printing
