Norris Alfred

Norris was born October 14, 1913. After graduation, he ran the Linotype at the Polk Progress, a weekly Nebraska newspaper started in 1907, before attending Doane College where he earned his BS degree in chemistry in 1940. He returned to Polk in 1955 after his dad's death and sold the family dry goods store to buy the Polk Progress. He served as both publisher and editor. Norris took a short break in 1965 when he sold the paper and moved out to Oregon to concentrate on painting, but repurchased it less than a couple years later and ran it until his retirement in 1989, which also marked the end the newspaper. Norris was honored in his time—he was named Master Editor by the Nebraska Press Association and received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980. His observations on human nature and politics in his “Polking Around” column, as well as his unpublished journal, are what make him so accessible to readers today. Norris Alfred died in 1995.