September 22, 2008

Morningside College to present

2008 Distinguished Alumni Award to Alan C. McIntosh

Photo courtesy of Rock County Star Herald in Luverne, Minn.

Morningside College will present its 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award posthumously to Alan C. McIntosh, former owner and editor of the Rock County Star Herald in Luverne, Minn.

The award will be presented on October 15 at a private dinner prior to the 2008 Peter Waitt Lecture featuring filmmaker Ken Burns. McIntosh’s daughter, Jean McIntosh Vickstrom of Bettendorf, Iowa, will accept the award.

During World War II, McIntosh’s weekly column, “More or Less Personal Chaff,” chronicled the war’s impact for readers of the Rock County Star Herald. Ken Burns featured many of McIntosh’s columns in the 2007 documentary “The War,” and actor Tom Hanks read the columns for the film. The book “Selected Chaff: The Wartime Columns of Al McIntosh,” published in 2007, is a collection of McIntosh’s columns.

McIntosh was born in Park River, N.D., in 1905. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and he moved with his parents to Sioux City in 1918. A 1922 graduate of Sioux City’s Central High School, McIntosh attended Morningside College for three years before enrolling at the University of Nebraska, where he received his degree in 1928. He worked for newspapers in Lincoln, Neb., before purchasing the Rock County Star in Luverne, Minn., in 1940. He purchased the Rock County Herald in 1942 and merged the two papers into the Rock County Star Herald.

McIntosh first received national and international attention in 1964 after writing an editorial entitled “A Tired American Gets Angry” in the Rock County Star Herald. The fiery column, which chastised critics of the United States, was reprinted in daily and weekly newspapers around the country and in foreign newspapers.

During his newspaper career, McIntosh served as president of the Minnesota Newspaper Association, National Editorial Association, American Newspaper Representatives and Interstate Press Association. He also was a director of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Several state and national press associations recognized his work and career with awards and citations.

McIntosh died in 1979 at the age of 73.