Columbus Republic 20 Mar 2004
Republic's Bob Brown dies
Journalist, engineer, soldier, inventor, leader of community
By Harry McCawley
[email protected]
Robert N. Brown, former publisher of The Republic and chairman of its parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, long recognized for his leadership in the Columbus community and the newspaper industry, was 83.
Arrangements are incomplete at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872 and expanded it to a daily operation five years later.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Columbus newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small, central Indiana daily grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
Recognized at a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry, Brown also was a major influence within his Columbus community.
His decision to take a risk and build an ultra-modern building in the redevelopment area was called a milestone in the remaking of Columbus' downtown in the early 1970s.
He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and was instrumental in setting the stage for the hospital becoming a regional health-care facility.
He frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry, ranging from the Community Service Award he was presented by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce in 1964 to his induction into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were butchered. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years The Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing -- a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) had inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in local leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the hospital Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects. Frank Forster, another trustee, said of Brown in 1974:
"It is through his devotion that this institution is what it is today."
Brown's list of community involvements went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in the Chamber of Commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 23 Mar 2004
Funeral set for Daily Journal founder
HNE STAFF REPORT
Funeral services for Robert N. Brown, founder of the Daily Journal, will be Thursday in Columbus.
Brown, 83, of Columbus, died Friday, March 19, 2004, at Shell Point Pavilion in Fort Myers, Fla.
He started the Daily Journal in 1963 and served as publisher until 1984, when he became chairman of Home News Enterprises, parent company of the newspaper.
Brown was born May 7, 1920, in Columbus, the son of Raymond S. and Anna Newell Brown. He married Alice Elizabeth "Betty" Frantz on Aug. 9, 1947, in Columbus. She died in 1991. He married Eloise Albert Sears on May 7, 1994, in Columbus. She survives.
A Purdue University graduate, he was a U.S. Army veteran, serving in World War II and during the Korean War.
He was named to the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976 and served as president of Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He also was deeply involved in the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Johnson County.
He was an inventor, obtaining patents for a copy cutting device and a composing room system for classified advertising.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown. It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper: He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
Among his community affiliations were Bartholomew County Hospital Board trustee, Columbus Hospital Foundation, North Christian Church, Bartholomew County United Way, Columbus Rotary Club, Bartholomew County Heritage Fund, Columbus School Foundation, Foundation for Youth, Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council. He and his first wife, Betty, established the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence. An instrumental scholarship also was added.
He also served on several local municipal and educational planning committees in Columbus.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church, 532 Fifth St. in Columbus, with Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., officiating. Calling will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today and 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street in Columbus. A private committal service will be at Garland Brook Cemetery in Columbus.
Other survivors include a son, Jeffrey N. Brown of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy A. Brown of Fountain Hills, Ariz., Rebecca E. Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan A. Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; two stepchildren, Susan Sears of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and B.J. Sears of Los Angeles; a brother, Dr. Richard Brown of Phoenix; seven grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, both of Downers Grove, Ill., Sarah DeClue of Chandler, Ariz., Erin Boggs of Scottsdale, Ariz., Cameron Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Christi and Ian Brown, both of Columbus; and two stepgrandchildren, Kelsey and Sayre Sundberg, both of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife; and a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County, 2626 E. 17th St., Columbus, IN 47201, or Bartholomew County Heritage Fund general fund, P.O. Box 1547, Columbus, IN 47202.
Greenfield Daily Reporter 20 Mar 2004
Robert Brown, 83, led Home News Enterprises
Harry McCawley/The Columbus Republic
Robert N. Brown, a longtime newspaper executive who was chairman of the Daily Reporter's parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
He was 83.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church in Columbus. Private burial will follow at Garland Brook Cemetery. Friends may call from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel in Columbus. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County or to the General Fund of the Bartholomew County Heritage Fund.
He represented the fourth generation of the Brown family in journalism. The family effort began with a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872
But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small newspaper grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Greenfield.
Home News Enterprises, formed in 1962, acquired the Daily Reporter from the Spencer family in 1973. Under Mr. Brown, the Daily Reporter moved into a new, state-of-the art plant in 1990 that now is being expanded.
"Mr. Brown was a skillful newspaperman who had an intensity and curiosity for learning," said Randall D. Shields, the Daily Reporter's publisher. "His imprint on Home News Enterprises will live on for all of us who knew and respected him."
Recognized nationally by his peers, Mr. Brown also was a major influence in Columbus. He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community. He and his wife endowed music scholarships, and he served on many civic boards.
In 1976, he entered the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Born in 1920, Mr. Brown received an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and entered the Army in 1943. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
His newspaper career, interrupted by more military service during the Korean War, soon carried him into deep civic involvement in Columbus. He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of his father, Raymond Brown.
In 1963, Mr. Brown, who already was making many company decisions, took one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal. The newspaper now is considered one of the finest of its size in the state.
Under Mr. Brown's leadership, Home News Enterprises broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring, in addition to the Daily Reporter, newspapers in Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
Mr. Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 20 Mar 2004
Brown transformed family business into corporate entity
BY HARRY MCCAWLEY
Robert N. Brown, founder and former publisher of the Daily Journal, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, 83, had served as chairman of the Daily Journal's parent company, Home News Enterprises, and was long recognized for his leadership in the newspaper industry.
Services are pending at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel, in Columbus.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
He was recognized on a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry and was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry. He was inducted into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were killed. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, Raymond, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years the Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing: a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in Columbus leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the Bartholomew County Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects.
Brown's list of community involvement went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in Bartholomew County, including the chamber of commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond The Republic in Columbus and the Daily Journal in Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She preceded him in death in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey Brown, of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard Brown, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Columbus Republic 21 Mar 2004
Generations of Browns have left imprint on Hoosier journalism
By John Harmon
Robert Newell Brown's family has deep roots in Indiana journalism.
Spanning 170 years, the Browns have blended engineering precision, printing excellence, journalistic heritage, community leadership, business acumen, inventors' industriousness, patriots' service to country -- and even a dash of riverboat gambler -- into a nationally recognized publishing operation.
Now in its fifth generation in Jeffrey Newell Brown, president and chief executive officer of Home News Enterprises, the Brown story began in Centerville, which is in Wayne County along the Ohio border.
Today those efforts reach White, Johnson, Brown, Hancock, Shelby, Jackson, Decatur, Jennings and Bartholomew counties, where HNE has newspaper and publishing and commercial printing operations.
The family was introduced to the printing business by Jacob I. Brown, the brother of Robert N. Brown's great-grandfather, Isaac M. Brown.
The family moved from Centerville to Bloomington, where in 1834 Jacob I. began working in a printer's shop for four years.
Younger brother Isaac M. also took to the profession, working on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa.
The same risk-taking that would be evident in Robert N. Brown 100 years later when he started an offset newspaper from scratch in Johnson County was displayed when Isaac M., then working at the weekly Terre Haute Express, found out that the competing Wabash Courier, his former employer, had a secret plan to become a daily.
According to the Brown family history written by family member Elizabeth Hildebrand Cagnon in 1997, Isaac M., a skilled printer confident of his abilities, talked the Express proprietor into quickly converting to a daily newspaper also.
The next Monday, they did exactly that.
Isaac M. became active in community affairs, ran for public office and by 1857 had become the publisher and editor of the Union, a daily and weekly publication in Terre Haute.
In 1859, he wrote the novel "Theodore and Leonora," which is believed to be one of the earliest novels written by a Hoosier, according to Cagnon.
The Civil War provided an unusual twist for the Browns.
After being captured and paroled twice by the Confederate Army, Isaac M. was given recruiting duties in Terre Haute. The first time he was captured was by his cousin, John Starnes, of the 1st Tennessee Rebel Cavalry.
No sooner had he returned than son, Isaac Theodore, enlisted in the same unit, 6th Cavalry, 71st Regiment, Indiana Infantry. Already a printer, he also was only 15 years old and was mustered out of the Army.
He succeeded in his third attempt.
Isaac T.'s grandson, Robert N. Brown, also experienced an unusual military career, being called back for the Korean War after already serving in World War II.
After the Civil War, the Browns quickly re-entered the newspaper business, opening the Sullivan County Union on Aug. 1, 1866, with Isaac M. serving as editor and Isaac T. as printer.
Isaac T. moved to Columbus and started the Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the Columbus operation, with dad becoming editor.
In 1876, Chalmers became editor and business manager of the Edinburgh Courier.
Isaac M. was an early supporter of a Civil War tribute that would become the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of Indianapolis. He also served as postmaster of Columbus, again following in his father's footsteps.
Isaac M. eventually filed for a veteran's pension for illness contracted during the Civil War. Upon his death in 1891, he was recognized for:
: Being the oldest editor in the state.
: Serving 42 years in the editorial chair.
: Originating the first editorial association.
The obituary also stated, "He was a man of great courage and with a strong mind … He was slow to form an opinion and slow to give up his position on any subject once he had taken it.
"He was a most kind-hearted man, and his sympathies for distressed humanity, wherever he came across it, went out to the extent of his ability …"
The Isaac T. family moved into the newspaper building on the northeast corner of Fifth and Washington streets.
Another trait that would be handed down the Brown family tree was inventors. Isaac T. was credited with inventing a cherry bucket and a box-making machine.
Isaac T.'s son, Raymond Brown, held patents for a tangent chart, bond yield chart, improved loose-leaf binders and a mechanical device for printers. He also built a radio at home.
Years later, Robert N. patented equipment for handling and cutting typesetting paper.
An introvert, Raymond was an expert in improving elements of the newspaper -- from sprinkler systems to carrier incentive programs.
Unlike his father and grandfather, Columbus native Raymond Brown was drawn to electrical engineering, which he studied at Purdue. It would be the same school and major his son, Robert N., would pursue.
Raymond worked at power plants in the West, making preliminary designs for a large hydroelectric plant in California. He also considered the teaching profession.
But Columbus beckoned. In 1916 Raymond's father "wrote a number of letters to his only son encouraging him to return to Columbus for he said that he very much needed his help at the newspaper," according to the family history.
Any doubts Raymond had about his career ended tragically the next year when Isaac T. died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
The family history recounts the situation: "Although his mother (Sarah E. "Lizzie" Sibley Brown) inherited the newspaper and retained ownership until her death in 1922, it was up to Raymond to either run it or put it on the market."
In 2002, Raymond's great-grandson, Stephen T. Marshall, was named general manager of the newly acquired Brown County Democrat, thus extending the family's publishing legacy to a sixth generation.
In recounting his family's endeavors on the 100th anniversary of The Republic, Robert N. Brown wrote:
"I would like to think that during these 100 years there is one thing which has not changed and that is our unending desire to serve the people of this southern Indiana area with the best newspaper it is possible to produce within the constraints of our resources.
"Time and events never stand still. Each passing year finds fewer free newspapers in this world, and it will be only through the constant diligence of every person who read these words that the free press in our own society will be preserved for the next 100 years."
Family tree
Isaac M. Brown
1821-1891
Worked on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa. Worked at Terre Haute Express, then as editor of the Sullivan County Union.
Isaac T. Brown
1848-1917
Was printer at Sullivan County Union when he moved to Columbus and started Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the operation.
Raymond Brown
1885-1964
Was an electrical engineer when he was called to Columbus to "help at the newspaper." Took over operation of paper when his father died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
Republic's Bob Brown dies
Journalist, engineer, soldier, inventor, leader of community
By Harry McCawley
[email protected]
Robert N. Brown, former publisher of The Republic and chairman of its parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, long recognized for his leadership in the Columbus community and the newspaper industry, was 83.
Arrangements are incomplete at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872 and expanded it to a daily operation five years later.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Columbus newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small, central Indiana daily grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
Recognized at a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry, Brown also was a major influence within his Columbus community.
His decision to take a risk and build an ultra-modern building in the redevelopment area was called a milestone in the remaking of Columbus' downtown in the early 1970s.
He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and was instrumental in setting the stage for the hospital becoming a regional health-care facility.
He frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry, ranging from the Community Service Award he was presented by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce in 1964 to his induction into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were butchered. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years The Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing -- a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) had inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in local leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the hospital Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects. Frank Forster, another trustee, said of Brown in 1974:
"It is through his devotion that this institution is what it is today."
Brown's list of community involvements went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in the Chamber of Commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 23 Mar 2004
Funeral set for Daily Journal founder
HNE STAFF REPORT
Funeral services for Robert N. Brown, founder of the Daily Journal, will be Thursday in Columbus.
Brown, 83, of Columbus, died Friday, March 19, 2004, at Shell Point Pavilion in Fort Myers, Fla.
He started the Daily Journal in 1963 and served as publisher until 1984, when he became chairman of Home News Enterprises, parent company of the newspaper.
Brown was born May 7, 1920, in Columbus, the son of Raymond S. and Anna Newell Brown. He married Alice Elizabeth "Betty" Frantz on Aug. 9, 1947, in Columbus. She died in 1991. He married Eloise Albert Sears on May 7, 1994, in Columbus. She survives.
A Purdue University graduate, he was a U.S. Army veteran, serving in World War II and during the Korean War.
He was named to the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976 and served as president of Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He also was deeply involved in the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Johnson County.
He was an inventor, obtaining patents for a copy cutting device and a composing room system for classified advertising.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown. It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper: He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
Among his community affiliations were Bartholomew County Hospital Board trustee, Columbus Hospital Foundation, North Christian Church, Bartholomew County United Way, Columbus Rotary Club, Bartholomew County Heritage Fund, Columbus School Foundation, Foundation for Youth, Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council. He and his first wife, Betty, established the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence. An instrumental scholarship also was added.
He also served on several local municipal and educational planning committees in Columbus.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church, 532 Fifth St. in Columbus, with Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., officiating. Calling will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today and 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street in Columbus. A private committal service will be at Garland Brook Cemetery in Columbus.
Other survivors include a son, Jeffrey N. Brown of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy A. Brown of Fountain Hills, Ariz., Rebecca E. Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan A. Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; two stepchildren, Susan Sears of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and B.J. Sears of Los Angeles; a brother, Dr. Richard Brown of Phoenix; seven grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, both of Downers Grove, Ill., Sarah DeClue of Chandler, Ariz., Erin Boggs of Scottsdale, Ariz., Cameron Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Christi and Ian Brown, both of Columbus; and two stepgrandchildren, Kelsey and Sayre Sundberg, both of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife; and a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County, 2626 E. 17th St., Columbus, IN 47201, or Bartholomew County Heritage Fund general fund, P.O. Box 1547, Columbus, IN 47202.
Greenfield Daily Reporter 20 Mar 2004
Robert Brown, 83, led Home News Enterprises
Harry McCawley/The Columbus Republic
Robert N. Brown, a longtime newspaper executive who was chairman of the Daily Reporter's parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
He was 83.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church in Columbus. Private burial will follow at Garland Brook Cemetery. Friends may call from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel in Columbus. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County or to the General Fund of the Bartholomew County Heritage Fund.
He represented the fourth generation of the Brown family in journalism. The family effort began with a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872
But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small newspaper grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Greenfield.
Home News Enterprises, formed in 1962, acquired the Daily Reporter from the Spencer family in 1973. Under Mr. Brown, the Daily Reporter moved into a new, state-of-the art plant in 1990 that now is being expanded.
"Mr. Brown was a skillful newspaperman who had an intensity and curiosity for learning," said Randall D. Shields, the Daily Reporter's publisher. "His imprint on Home News Enterprises will live on for all of us who knew and respected him."
Recognized nationally by his peers, Mr. Brown also was a major influence in Columbus. He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community. He and his wife endowed music scholarships, and he served on many civic boards.
In 1976, he entered the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Born in 1920, Mr. Brown received an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and entered the Army in 1943. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
His newspaper career, interrupted by more military service during the Korean War, soon carried him into deep civic involvement in Columbus. He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of his father, Raymond Brown.
In 1963, Mr. Brown, who already was making many company decisions, took one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal. The newspaper now is considered one of the finest of its size in the state.
Under Mr. Brown's leadership, Home News Enterprises broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring, in addition to the Daily Reporter, newspapers in Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
Mr. Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 20 Mar 2004
Brown transformed family business into corporate entity
BY HARRY MCCAWLEY
Robert N. Brown, founder and former publisher of the Daily Journal, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, 83, had served as chairman of the Daily Journal's parent company, Home News Enterprises, and was long recognized for his leadership in the newspaper industry.
Services are pending at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel, in Columbus.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
He was recognized on a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry and was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry. He was inducted into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were killed. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, Raymond, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years the Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing: a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in Columbus leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the Bartholomew County Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects.
Brown's list of community involvement went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in Bartholomew County, including the chamber of commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond The Republic in Columbus and the Daily Journal in Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She preceded him in death in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey Brown, of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard Brown, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Columbus Republic 21 Mar 2004
Generations of Browns have left imprint on Hoosier journalism
By John Harmon
Robert Newell Brown's family has deep roots in Indiana journalism.
Spanning 170 years, the Browns have blended engineering precision, printing excellence, journalistic heritage, community leadership, business acumen, inventors' industriousness, patriots' service to country -- and even a dash of riverboat gambler -- into a nationally recognized publishing operation.
Now in its fifth generation in Jeffrey Newell Brown, president and chief executive officer of Home News Enterprises, the Brown story began in Centerville, which is in Wayne County along the Ohio border.
Today those efforts reach White, Johnson, Brown, Hancock, Shelby, Jackson, Decatur, Jennings and Bartholomew counties, where HNE has newspaper and publishing and commercial printing operations.
The family was introduced to the printing business by Jacob I. Brown, the brother of Robert N. Brown's great-grandfather, Isaac M. Brown.
The family moved from Centerville to Bloomington, where in 1834 Jacob I. began working in a printer's shop for four years.
Younger brother Isaac M. also took to the profession, working on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa.
The same risk-taking that would be evident in Robert N. Brown 100 years later when he started an offset newspaper from scratch in Johnson County was displayed when Isaac M., then working at the weekly Terre Haute Express, found out that the competing Wabash Courier, his former employer, had a secret plan to become a daily.
According to the Brown family history written by family member Elizabeth Hildebrand Cagnon in 1997, Isaac M., a skilled printer confident of his abilities, talked the Express proprietor into quickly converting to a daily newspaper also.
The next Monday, they did exactly that.
Isaac M. became active in community affairs, ran for public office and by 1857 had become the publisher and editor of the Union, a daily and weekly publication in Terre Haute.
In 1859, he wrote the novel "Theodore and Leonora," which is believed to be one of the earliest novels written by a Hoosier, according to Cagnon.
The Civil War provided an unusual twist for the Browns.
After being captured and paroled twice by the Confederate Army, Isaac M. was given recruiting duties in Terre Haute. The first time he was captured was by his cousin, John Starnes, of the 1st Tennessee Rebel Cavalry.
No sooner had he returned than son, Isaac Theodore, enlisted in the same unit, 6th Cavalry, 71st Regiment, Indiana Infantry. Already a printer, he also was only 15 years old and was mustered out of the Army.
He succeeded in his third attempt.
Isaac T.'s grandson, Robert N. Brown, also experienced an unusual military career, being called back for the Korean War after already serving in World War II.
After the Civil War, the Browns quickly re-entered the newspaper business, opening the Sullivan County Union on Aug. 1, 1866, with Isaac M. serving as editor and Isaac T. as printer.
Isaac T. moved to Columbus and started the Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the Columbus operation, with dad becoming editor.
In 1876, Chalmers became editor and business manager of the Edinburgh Courier.
Isaac M. was an early supporter of a Civil War tribute that would become the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of Indianapolis. He also served as postmaster of Columbus, again following in his father's footsteps.
Isaac M. eventually filed for a veteran's pension for illness contracted during the Civil War. Upon his death in 1891, he was recognized for:
: Being the oldest editor in the state.
: Serving 42 years in the editorial chair.
: Originating the first editorial association.
The obituary also stated, "He was a man of great courage and with a strong mind … He was slow to form an opinion and slow to give up his position on any subject once he had taken it.
"He was a most kind-hearted man, and his sympathies for distressed humanity, wherever he came across it, went out to the extent of his ability …"
The Isaac T. family moved into the newspaper building on the northeast corner of Fifth and Washington streets.
Another trait that would be handed down the Brown family tree was inventors. Isaac T. was credited with inventing a cherry bucket and a box-making machine.
Isaac T.'s son, Raymond Brown, held patents for a tangent chart, bond yield chart, improved loose-leaf binders and a mechanical device for printers. He also built a radio at home.
Years later, Robert N. patented equipment for handling and cutting typesetting paper.
An introvert, Raymond was an expert in improving elements of the newspaper -- from sprinkler systems to carrier incentive programs.
Unlike his father and grandfather, Columbus native Raymond Brown was drawn to electrical engineering, which he studied at Purdue. It would be the same school and major his son, Robert N., would pursue.
Raymond worked at power plants in the West, making preliminary designs for a large hydroelectric plant in California. He also considered the teaching profession.
But Columbus beckoned. In 1916 Raymond's father "wrote a number of letters to his only son encouraging him to return to Columbus for he said that he very much needed his help at the newspaper," according to the family history.
Any doubts Raymond had about his career ended tragically the next year when Isaac T. died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
The family history recounts the situation: "Although his mother (Sarah E. "Lizzie" Sibley Brown) inherited the newspaper and retained ownership until her death in 1922, it was up to Raymond to either run it or put it on the market."
In 2002, Raymond's great-grandson, Stephen T. Marshall, was named general manager of the newly acquired Brown County Democrat, thus extending the family's publishing legacy to a sixth generation.
In recounting his family's endeavors on the 100th anniversary of The Republic, Robert N. Brown wrote:
"I would like to think that during these 100 years there is one thing which has not changed and that is our unending desire to serve the people of this southern Indiana area with the best newspaper it is possible to produce within the constraints of our resources.
"Time and events never stand still. Each passing year finds fewer free newspapers in this world, and it will be only through the constant diligence of every person who read these words that the free press in our own society will be preserved for the next 100 years."
Family tree
Isaac M. Brown
1821-1891
Worked on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa. Worked at Terre Haute Express, then as editor of the Sullivan County Union.
Isaac T. Brown
1848-1917
Was printer at Sullivan County Union when he moved to Columbus and started Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the operation.
Raymond Brown
1885-1964
Was an electrical engineer when he was called to Columbus to "help at the newspaper." Took over operation of paper when his father died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
Columbus Republic 20 Mar 2004
Republic's Bob Brown dies
Journalist, engineer, soldier, inventor, leader of community
By Harry McCawley
[email protected]
Robert N. Brown, former publisher of The Republic and chairman of its parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, long recognized for his leadership in the Columbus community and the newspaper industry, was 83.
Arrangements are incomplete at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872 and expanded it to a daily operation five years later.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Columbus newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small, central Indiana daily grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
Recognized at a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry, Brown also was a major influence within his Columbus community.
His decision to take a risk and build an ultra-modern building in the redevelopment area was called a milestone in the remaking of Columbus' downtown in the early 1970s.
He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and was instrumental in setting the stage for the hospital becoming a regional health-care facility.
He frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry, ranging from the Community Service Award he was presented by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce in 1964 to his induction into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were butchered. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years The Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing -- a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) had inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in local leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the hospital Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects. Frank Forster, another trustee, said of Brown in 1974:
"It is through his devotion that this institution is what it is today."
Brown's list of community involvements went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in the Chamber of Commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 23 Mar 2004
Funeral set for Daily Journal founder
HNE STAFF REPORT
Funeral services for Robert N. Brown, founder of the Daily Journal, will be Thursday in Columbus.
Brown, 83, of Columbus, died Friday, March 19, 2004, at Shell Point Pavilion in Fort Myers, Fla.
He started the Daily Journal in 1963 and served as publisher until 1984, when he became chairman of Home News Enterprises, parent company of the newspaper.
Brown was born May 7, 1920, in Columbus, the son of Raymond S. and Anna Newell Brown. He married Alice Elizabeth "Betty" Frantz on Aug. 9, 1947, in Columbus. She died in 1991. He married Eloise Albert Sears on May 7, 1994, in Columbus. She survives.
A Purdue University graduate, he was a U.S. Army veteran, serving in World War II and during the Korean War.
He was named to the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976 and served as president of Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He also was deeply involved in the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Johnson County.
He was an inventor, obtaining patents for a copy cutting device and a composing room system for classified advertising.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown. It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper: He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
Among his community affiliations were Bartholomew County Hospital Board trustee, Columbus Hospital Foundation, North Christian Church, Bartholomew County United Way, Columbus Rotary Club, Bartholomew County Heritage Fund, Columbus School Foundation, Foundation for Youth, Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council. He and his first wife, Betty, established the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence. An instrumental scholarship also was added.
He also served on several local municipal and educational planning committees in Columbus.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church, 532 Fifth St. in Columbus, with Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., officiating. Calling will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today and 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street in Columbus. A private committal service will be at Garland Brook Cemetery in Columbus.
Other survivors include a son, Jeffrey N. Brown of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy A. Brown of Fountain Hills, Ariz., Rebecca E. Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan A. Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; two stepchildren, Susan Sears of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and B.J. Sears of Los Angeles; a brother, Dr. Richard Brown of Phoenix; seven grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, both of Downers Grove, Ill., Sarah DeClue of Chandler, Ariz., Erin Boggs of Scottsdale, Ariz., Cameron Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Christi and Ian Brown, both of Columbus; and two stepgrandchildren, Kelsey and Sayre Sundberg, both of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife; and a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County, 2626 E. 17th St., Columbus, IN 47201, or Bartholomew County Heritage Fund general fund, P.O. Box 1547, Columbus, IN 47202.
Greenfield Daily Reporter 20 Mar 2004
Robert Brown, 83, led Home News Enterprises
Harry McCawley/The Columbus Republic
Robert N. Brown, a longtime newspaper executive who was chairman of the Daily Reporter's parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
He was 83.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church in Columbus. Private burial will follow at Garland Brook Cemetery. Friends may call from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel in Columbus. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County or to the General Fund of the Bartholomew County Heritage Fund.
He represented the fourth generation of the Brown family in journalism. The family effort began with a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872
But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small newspaper grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Greenfield.
Home News Enterprises, formed in 1962, acquired the Daily Reporter from the Spencer family in 1973. Under Mr. Brown, the Daily Reporter moved into a new, state-of-the art plant in 1990 that now is being expanded.
"Mr. Brown was a skillful newspaperman who had an intensity and curiosity for learning," said Randall D. Shields, the Daily Reporter's publisher. "His imprint on Home News Enterprises will live on for all of us who knew and respected him."
Recognized nationally by his peers, Mr. Brown also was a major influence in Columbus. He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community. He and his wife endowed music scholarships, and he served on many civic boards.
In 1976, he entered the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Born in 1920, Mr. Brown received an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and entered the Army in 1943. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
His newspaper career, interrupted by more military service during the Korean War, soon carried him into deep civic involvement in Columbus. He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of his father, Raymond Brown.
In 1963, Mr. Brown, who already was making many company decisions, took one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal. The newspaper now is considered one of the finest of its size in the state.
Under Mr. Brown's leadership, Home News Enterprises broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring, in addition to the Daily Reporter, newspapers in Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
Mr. Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 20 Mar 2004
Brown transformed family business into corporate entity
BY HARRY MCCAWLEY
Robert N. Brown, founder and former publisher of the Daily Journal, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, 83, had served as chairman of the Daily Journal's parent company, Home News Enterprises, and was long recognized for his leadership in the newspaper industry.
Services are pending at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel, in Columbus.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
He was recognized on a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry and was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry. He was inducted into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were killed. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, Raymond, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years the Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing: a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in Columbus leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the Bartholomew County Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects.
Brown's list of community involvement went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in Bartholomew County, including the chamber of commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond The Republic in Columbus and the Daily Journal in Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She preceded him in death in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey Brown, of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard Brown, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Columbus Republic 21 Mar 2004
Generations of Browns have left imprint on Hoosier journalism
By John Harmon
Robert Newell Brown's family has deep roots in Indiana journalism.
Spanning 170 years, the Browns have blended engineering precision, printing excellence, journalistic heritage, community leadership, business acumen, inventors' industriousness, patriots' service to country -- and even a dash of riverboat gambler -- into a nationally recognized publishing operation.
Now in its fifth generation in Jeffrey Newell Brown, president and chief executive officer of Home News Enterprises, the Brown story began in Centerville, which is in Wayne County along the Ohio border.
Today those efforts reach White, Johnson, Brown, Hancock, Shelby, Jackson, Decatur, Jennings and Bartholomew counties, where HNE has newspaper and publishing and commercial printing operations.
The family was introduced to the printing business by Jacob I. Brown, the brother of Robert N. Brown's great-grandfather, Isaac M. Brown.
The family moved from Centerville to Bloomington, where in 1834 Jacob I. began working in a printer's shop for four years.
Younger brother Isaac M. also took to the profession, working on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa.
The same risk-taking that would be evident in Robert N. Brown 100 years later when he started an offset newspaper from scratch in Johnson County was displayed when Isaac M., then working at the weekly Terre Haute Express, found out that the competing Wabash Courier, his former employer, had a secret plan to become a daily.
According to the Brown family history written by family member Elizabeth Hildebrand Cagnon in 1997, Isaac M., a skilled printer confident of his abilities, talked the Express proprietor into quickly converting to a daily newspaper also.
The next Monday, they did exactly that.
Isaac M. became active in community affairs, ran for public office and by 1857 had become the publisher and editor of the Union, a daily and weekly publication in Terre Haute.
In 1859, he wrote the novel "Theodore and Leonora," which is believed to be one of the earliest novels written by a Hoosier, according to Cagnon.
The Civil War provided an unusual twist for the Browns.
After being captured and paroled twice by the Confederate Army, Isaac M. was given recruiting duties in Terre Haute. The first time he was captured was by his cousin, John Starnes, of the 1st Tennessee Rebel Cavalry.
No sooner had he returned than son, Isaac Theodore, enlisted in the same unit, 6th Cavalry, 71st Regiment, Indiana Infantry. Already a printer, he also was only 15 years old and was mustered out of the Army.
He succeeded in his third attempt.
Isaac T.'s grandson, Robert N. Brown, also experienced an unusual military career, being called back for the Korean War after already serving in World War II.
After the Civil War, the Browns quickly re-entered the newspaper business, opening the Sullivan County Union on Aug. 1, 1866, with Isaac M. serving as editor and Isaac T. as printer.
Isaac T. moved to Columbus and started the Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the Columbus operation, with dad becoming editor.
In 1876, Chalmers became editor and business manager of the Edinburgh Courier.
Isaac M. was an early supporter of a Civil War tribute that would become the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of Indianapolis. He also served as postmaster of Columbus, again following in his father's footsteps.
Isaac M. eventually filed for a veteran's pension for illness contracted during the Civil War. Upon his death in 1891, he was recognized for:
: Being the oldest editor in the state.
: Serving 42 years in the editorial chair.
: Originating the first editorial association.
The obituary also stated, "He was a man of great courage and with a strong mind … He was slow to form an opinion and slow to give up his position on any subject once he had taken it.
"He was a most kind-hearted man, and his sympathies for distressed humanity, wherever he came across it, went out to the extent of his ability …"
The Isaac T. family moved into the newspaper building on the northeast corner of Fifth and Washington streets.
Another trait that would be handed down the Brown family tree was inventors. Isaac T. was credited with inventing a cherry bucket and a box-making machine.
Isaac T.'s son, Raymond Brown, held patents for a tangent chart, bond yield chart, improved loose-leaf binders and a mechanical device for printers. He also built a radio at home.
Years later, Robert N. patented equipment for handling and cutting typesetting paper.
An introvert, Raymond was an expert in improving elements of the newspaper -- from sprinkler systems to carrier incentive programs.
Unlike his father and grandfather, Columbus native Raymond Brown was drawn to electrical engineering, which he studied at Purdue. It would be the same school and major his son, Robert N., would pursue.
Raymond worked at power plants in the West, making preliminary designs for a large hydroelectric plant in California. He also considered the teaching profession.
But Columbus beckoned. In 1916 Raymond's father "wrote a number of letters to his only son encouraging him to return to Columbus for he said that he very much needed his help at the newspaper," according to the family history.
Any doubts Raymond had about his career ended tragically the next year when Isaac T. died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
The family history recounts the situation: "Although his mother (Sarah E. "Lizzie" Sibley Brown) inherited the newspaper and retained ownership until her death in 1922, it was up to Raymond to either run it or put it on the market."
In 2002, Raymond's great-grandson, Stephen T. Marshall, was named general manager of the newly acquired Brown County Democrat, thus extending the family's publishing legacy to a sixth generation.
In recounting his family's endeavors on the 100th anniversary of The Republic, Robert N. Brown wrote:
"I would like to think that during these 100 years there is one thing which has not changed and that is our unending desire to serve the people of this southern Indiana area with the best newspaper it is possible to produce within the constraints of our resources.
"Time and events never stand still. Each passing year finds fewer free newspapers in this world, and it will be only through the constant diligence of every person who read these words that the free press in our own society will be preserved for the next 100 years."
Family tree
Isaac M. Brown
1821-1891
Worked on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa. Worked at Terre Haute Express, then as editor of the Sullivan County Union.
Isaac T. Brown
1848-1917
Was printer at Sullivan County Union when he moved to Columbus and started Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the operation.
Raymond Brown
1885-1964
Was an electrical engineer when he was called to Columbus to "help at the newspaper." Took over operation of paper when his father died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
Republic's Bob Brown dies
Journalist, engineer, soldier, inventor, leader of community
By Harry McCawley
[email protected]
Robert N. Brown, former publisher of The Republic and chairman of its parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, long recognized for his leadership in the Columbus community and the newspaper industry, was 83.
Arrangements are incomplete at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872 and expanded it to a daily operation five years later.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Columbus newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small, central Indiana daily grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
Recognized at a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry, Brown also was a major influence within his Columbus community.
His decision to take a risk and build an ultra-modern building in the redevelopment area was called a milestone in the remaking of Columbus' downtown in the early 1970s.
He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and was instrumental in setting the stage for the hospital becoming a regional health-care facility.
He frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry, ranging from the Community Service Award he was presented by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce in 1964 to his induction into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were butchered. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years The Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing -- a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) had inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in local leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the hospital Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects. Frank Forster, another trustee, said of Brown in 1974:
"It is through his devotion that this institution is what it is today."
Brown's list of community involvements went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in the Chamber of Commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 23 Mar 2004
Funeral set for Daily Journal founder
HNE STAFF REPORT
Funeral services for Robert N. Brown, founder of the Daily Journal, will be Thursday in Columbus.
Brown, 83, of Columbus, died Friday, March 19, 2004, at Shell Point Pavilion in Fort Myers, Fla.
He started the Daily Journal in 1963 and served as publisher until 1984, when he became chairman of Home News Enterprises, parent company of the newspaper.
Brown was born May 7, 1920, in Columbus, the son of Raymond S. and Anna Newell Brown. He married Alice Elizabeth "Betty" Frantz on Aug. 9, 1947, in Columbus. She died in 1991. He married Eloise Albert Sears on May 7, 1994, in Columbus. She survives.
A Purdue University graduate, he was a U.S. Army veteran, serving in World War II and during the Korean War.
He was named to the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976 and served as president of Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He also was deeply involved in the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Johnson County.
He was an inventor, obtaining patents for a copy cutting device and a composing room system for classified advertising.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown. It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper: He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
Among his community affiliations were Bartholomew County Hospital Board trustee, Columbus Hospital Foundation, North Christian Church, Bartholomew County United Way, Columbus Rotary Club, Bartholomew County Heritage Fund, Columbus School Foundation, Foundation for Youth, Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council. He and his first wife, Betty, established the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence. An instrumental scholarship also was added.
He also served on several local municipal and educational planning committees in Columbus.
The funeral will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church, 532 Fifth St. in Columbus, with Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., officiating. Calling will be from 4 to 8 p.m. today and 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel on 25th Street in Columbus. A private committal service will be at Garland Brook Cemetery in Columbus.
Other survivors include a son, Jeffrey N. Brown of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy A. Brown of Fountain Hills, Ariz., Rebecca E. Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan A. Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; two stepchildren, Susan Sears of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and B.J. Sears of Los Angeles; a brother, Dr. Richard Brown of Phoenix; seven grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, both of Downers Grove, Ill., Sarah DeClue of Chandler, Ariz., Erin Boggs of Scottsdale, Ariz., Cameron Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Christi and Ian Brown, both of Columbus; and two stepgrandchildren, Kelsey and Sayre Sundberg, both of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife; and a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County, 2626 E. 17th St., Columbus, IN 47201, or Bartholomew County Heritage Fund general fund, P.O. Box 1547, Columbus, IN 47202.
Greenfield Daily Reporter 20 Mar 2004
Robert Brown, 83, led Home News Enterprises
Harry McCawley/The Columbus Republic
Robert N. Brown, a longtime newspaper executive who was chairman of the Daily Reporter's parent company, Home News Enterprises, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
He was 83.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at First Christian Church in Columbus. Private burial will follow at Garland Brook Cemetery. Friends may call from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel in Columbus. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Bartholomew County or to the General Fund of the Bartholomew County Heritage Fund.
He represented the fourth generation of the Brown family in journalism. The family effort began with a small weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872
But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that the small newspaper grew into a corporate entity publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities, including Greenfield.
Home News Enterprises, formed in 1962, acquired the Daily Reporter from the Spencer family in 1973. Under Mr. Brown, the Daily Reporter moved into a new, state-of-the art plant in 1990 that now is being expanded.
"Mr. Brown was a skillful newspaperman who had an intensity and curiosity for learning," said Randall D. Shields, the Daily Reporter's publisher. "His imprint on Home News Enterprises will live on for all of us who knew and respected him."
Recognized nationally by his peers, Mr. Brown also was a major influence in Columbus. He served 16 years as a trustee on the Bartholomew County Hospital Board and frequently was recognized for his contributions to the community. He and his wife endowed music scholarships, and he served on many civic boards.
In 1976, he entered the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Born in 1920, Mr. Brown received an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and entered the Army in 1943. For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
His newspaper career, interrupted by more military service during the Korean War, soon carried him into deep civic involvement in Columbus. He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of his father, Raymond Brown.
In 1963, Mr. Brown, who already was making many company decisions, took one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a new newspaper in Johnson County called The Daily Journal. The newspaper now is considered one of the finest of its size in the state.
Under Mr. Brown's leadership, Home News Enterprises broadened its base beyond Columbus and Franklin, acquiring, in addition to the Daily Reporter, newspapers in Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
Mr. Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She died in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives him.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey, in Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; seven grandchildren; and a brother, Richard, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Franklin Daily Journal 20 Mar 2004
Brown transformed family business into corporate entity
BY HARRY MCCAWLEY
Robert N. Brown, founder and former publisher of the Daily Journal, died Friday morning in Fort Myers, Fla.
Brown, 83, had served as chairman of the Daily Journal's parent company, Home News Enterprises, and was long recognized for his leadership in the newspaper industry.
Services are pending at Myers Funeral Service, Reed & Jewell Chapel, in Columbus.
He represented the fourth generation of a newspaper family that started a small, weekly newspaper in Columbus in 1872.
For the past 132 years, the Brown family has been a fixture in Indiana newspaper history. But it was under Bob Brown's leadership that his family's business grew into a corporate entity, publishing newspapers in several other Indiana communities.
He was recognized on a national level by his peers in the newspaper industry and was recognized for his contributions to the community and the newspaper industry. He was inducted into the Indiana Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1976.
He was born May 7, 1920, to Raymond and Anna Brown in Columbus.
After receiving an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1941 and serving as an engineer-trainee for Ingersoll-Rand in New York City, he entered the Army in 1943. He served two years in the Signal Corps as a radar technical officer in the European Theater. He was awarded the Bronze Star.
In the closing months of the war, his unit was the first to reach the Nordhausen concentration camp, one of Adolf Hitler's notorious murder factories in which millions of Jews were killed. He told friends that he carried the images of the emaciated prisoners and the piles of human bones through the rest of his life.
Upon his discharge from the Army, he returned to Columbus, where he began his newspaper career with his father, Raymond, who was publisher of what was then called The Evening Republican.
It was a career that was to be interrupted in 1951 when he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. He was assigned to travel to military bases throughout the country, giving lectures on communications equipment.
In 1952 he was discharged and returned to The Evening Republican, where he became deeply involved in community affairs. One of his main interests was in keeping a viable downtown business district, and he frequently warned community groups of the potential loss of businesses because of inadequate parking.
He became publisher of The Republic in 1964 upon the death of Raymond Brown, but because of his father's failing health, he had been actively involved in decision-making for several years.
It was during that period he made one of the biggest gambles in Indiana newspaper history, starting from scratch a newspaper in Johnson County called the Daily Journal.
It was not just that he was entering into a highly competitive newspaper market that included three Indianapolis dailies and a century-old Franklin paper. He made the bold move of erecting a modern building on U.S. 31 and publishing the paper by the still-new method of offset printing.
For several years the Daily Journal lost money for the company because of the demand to beat the competition but prevailed in the end, acquiring its century-old newspaper competition in 1969.
Newspaper publishing was just one of the elements in Brown's blood. He was also an inventor and obtained patents for two important developments in publishing: a copy cutter and a composing system for classified advertising.
He also brought major changes to the newspaper that he and his siblings (Elizabeth and Richard Brown) inherited from their father.
One of the biggest was the decision in 1967 to change the name of the newspaper from The Evening Republican to The Republic. The major factor in the decision was to affirm the then 95-year-old newspaper as an independent political entity.
Another major change came about soon after the new name. Having been at Fifth and Franklin streets since 1925, the Brown family elected to move to a new location.
At the same time, a controversial downtown redevelopment project was getting under way, and Brown took the lead in demonstrating his confidence in the project by electing to be the first tenant in the redevelopment area.
That decision was hailed by other community leaders. Ben Bush, chairman of the Redevelopment Commission said, "No one bet a larger portion of their assets on redevelopment at that time than Bob Brown."
He commissioned renowned architect Myron Goldsmith to develop the plans for the building, which had as its centerpiece an offset press.
Through the years Brown was a constant presence in Columbus leadership circles.
In 1964, he was presented the Community Service Award by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce.
His 16-year term on the Bartholomew County Board of Trustees from 1958 to 1974 was marked by a number of major expansion projects.
Brown's list of community involvement went far beyond the newspaper and the hospital. He held several leadership posts in Bartholomew County, including the chamber of commerce and was United Way fund drive chairman in 1972. He was an elder at North Christian Church and was president of the Rotary Club, which named him a Paul Harris Fellow.
In 1984, he and his wife, Betty, created the Robert and Betty Brown Awards for Vocal Excellence in an effort to encourage Bartholomew County high school students who planned to continue their higher education in the field of music.
In 1991 they added a second scholarship for instrumental excellence. Together the two award programs have provided $225,766 in scholarships for young people.
In 1985 the Browns were presented the Mayor's Arts Award by Mayor Bob Stewart.
Brown was also one of the community leaders who helped establish the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County in 1976.
He was a director on the Columbus School Foundation, the Foundation for Youth, the Hospital Foundation, the Columbus Jaycees and the Boys Club Council.
He served on several important committees: Action Committee on City Development and Planning; Bartholomew Consolidated School Curriculum Study Committee; Steering Committee to Study County Health Operations; Mayor's Committee on Civic Affairs; Committee to Study City Water Utilities; Fact Finding and Research Committee for the Aged; and the Focus 2000 Committee.
One of his chief loves was travel, and in visits to countries around the world, he chronicled his impressions in articles written for The Republic. He and other newspaper executives were among the first Americans to visit China after the two countries resumed relations under President Richard Nixon.
Within the newspaper industry, Brown served as president of the Hoosier State Press Association and the Inland Daily Press Association. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the American Press Institute. He led more than 27 seminars at the American Press Institute.
Under his leadership, Home News Enterprises, which was created in 1962, broadened its base beyond The Republic in Columbus and the Daily Journal in Franklin, acquiring newspapers in Greenfield, Plainfield, Monticello, Carmel and Angola.
1985 marked another important year in The Republic's history when the newspaper expanded to a seven-day-a-week operation by adding a Sunday publication.
Brown retired as managing partner of Home News Enterprises in 1989, although he retained the title of chairman.
His son, Jeffrey, had joined the company in 1985 and became the fifth generation of the family to continue the publishing tradition.
Bob Brown married Alice Elizabeth Frantz in 1947. She preceded him in death in 1991. In 1994 he married Eloise Albert Sears. She survives.
He is also survived by a son, Jeffrey Brown, of Columbus; three daughters, Peggy Brown of Scottsdale, Ariz., Rebecca Brown Thompson of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Susan Brown of Downers Grove, Ill.; grandchildren, Zoran and Alex Gvojic, Sarah DeClue, Erin Boggs, Cameron Thompson and Christi and Ian Brown; and a brother, Richard Brown, of Phoenix. He was preceded in death by a sister, Elizabeth Marshall.
Columbus Republic 21 Mar 2004
Generations of Browns have left imprint on Hoosier journalism
By John Harmon
Robert Newell Brown's family has deep roots in Indiana journalism.
Spanning 170 years, the Browns have blended engineering precision, printing excellence, journalistic heritage, community leadership, business acumen, inventors' industriousness, patriots' service to country -- and even a dash of riverboat gambler -- into a nationally recognized publishing operation.
Now in its fifth generation in Jeffrey Newell Brown, president and chief executive officer of Home News Enterprises, the Brown story began in Centerville, which is in Wayne County along the Ohio border.
Today those efforts reach White, Johnson, Brown, Hancock, Shelby, Jackson, Decatur, Jennings and Bartholomew counties, where HNE has newspaper and publishing and commercial printing operations.
The family was introduced to the printing business by Jacob I. Brown, the brother of Robert N. Brown's great-grandfather, Isaac M. Brown.
The family moved from Centerville to Bloomington, where in 1834 Jacob I. began working in a printer's shop for four years.
Younger brother Isaac M. also took to the profession, working on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa.
The same risk-taking that would be evident in Robert N. Brown 100 years later when he started an offset newspaper from scratch in Johnson County was displayed when Isaac M., then working at the weekly Terre Haute Express, found out that the competing Wabash Courier, his former employer, had a secret plan to become a daily.
According to the Brown family history written by family member Elizabeth Hildebrand Cagnon in 1997, Isaac M., a skilled printer confident of his abilities, talked the Express proprietor into quickly converting to a daily newspaper also.
The next Monday, they did exactly that.
Isaac M. became active in community affairs, ran for public office and by 1857 had become the publisher and editor of the Union, a daily and weekly publication in Terre Haute.
In 1859, he wrote the novel "Theodore and Leonora," which is believed to be one of the earliest novels written by a Hoosier, according to Cagnon.
The Civil War provided an unusual twist for the Browns.
After being captured and paroled twice by the Confederate Army, Isaac M. was given recruiting duties in Terre Haute. The first time he was captured was by his cousin, John Starnes, of the 1st Tennessee Rebel Cavalry.
No sooner had he returned than son, Isaac Theodore, enlisted in the same unit, 6th Cavalry, 71st Regiment, Indiana Infantry. Already a printer, he also was only 15 years old and was mustered out of the Army.
He succeeded in his third attempt.
Isaac T.'s grandson, Robert N. Brown, also experienced an unusual military career, being called back for the Korean War after already serving in World War II.
After the Civil War, the Browns quickly re-entered the newspaper business, opening the Sullivan County Union on Aug. 1, 1866, with Isaac M. serving as editor and Isaac T. as printer.
Isaac T. moved to Columbus and started the Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the Columbus operation, with dad becoming editor.
In 1876, Chalmers became editor and business manager of the Edinburgh Courier.
Isaac M. was an early supporter of a Civil War tribute that would become the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of Indianapolis. He also served as postmaster of Columbus, again following in his father's footsteps.
Isaac M. eventually filed for a veteran's pension for illness contracted during the Civil War. Upon his death in 1891, he was recognized for:
: Being the oldest editor in the state.
: Serving 42 years in the editorial chair.
: Originating the first editorial association.
The obituary also stated, "He was a man of great courage and with a strong mind … He was slow to form an opinion and slow to give up his position on any subject once he had taken it.
"He was a most kind-hearted man, and his sympathies for distressed humanity, wherever he came across it, went out to the extent of his ability …"
The Isaac T. family moved into the newspaper building on the northeast corner of Fifth and Washington streets.
Another trait that would be handed down the Brown family tree was inventors. Isaac T. was credited with inventing a cherry bucket and a box-making machine.
Isaac T.'s son, Raymond Brown, held patents for a tangent chart, bond yield chart, improved loose-leaf binders and a mechanical device for printers. He also built a radio at home.
Years later, Robert N. patented equipment for handling and cutting typesetting paper.
An introvert, Raymond was an expert in improving elements of the newspaper -- from sprinkler systems to carrier incentive programs.
Unlike his father and grandfather, Columbus native Raymond Brown was drawn to electrical engineering, which he studied at Purdue. It would be the same school and major his son, Robert N., would pursue.
Raymond worked at power plants in the West, making preliminary designs for a large hydroelectric plant in California. He also considered the teaching profession.
But Columbus beckoned. In 1916 Raymond's father "wrote a number of letters to his only son encouraging him to return to Columbus for he said that he very much needed his help at the newspaper," according to the family history.
Any doubts Raymond had about his career ended tragically the next year when Isaac T. died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
The family history recounts the situation: "Although his mother (Sarah E. "Lizzie" Sibley Brown) inherited the newspaper and retained ownership until her death in 1922, it was up to Raymond to either run it or put it on the market."
In 2002, Raymond's great-grandson, Stephen T. Marshall, was named general manager of the newly acquired Brown County Democrat, thus extending the family's publishing legacy to a sixth generation.
In recounting his family's endeavors on the 100th anniversary of The Republic, Robert N. Brown wrote:
"I would like to think that during these 100 years there is one thing which has not changed and that is our unending desire to serve the people of this southern Indiana area with the best newspaper it is possible to produce within the constraints of our resources.
"Time and events never stand still. Each passing year finds fewer free newspapers in this world, and it will be only through the constant diligence of every person who read these words that the free press in our own society will be preserved for the next 100 years."
Family tree
Isaac M. Brown
1821-1891
Worked on newspapers in Paris, Ill., and Iowa City, Iowa. Worked at Terre Haute Express, then as editor of the Sullivan County Union.
Isaac T. Brown
1848-1917
Was printer at Sullivan County Union when he moved to Columbus and started Weekly Republican with Frank Lantz on April 4, 1872. Soon his father and brother, Chalmers Brown, joined the operation.
Raymond Brown
1885-1964
Was an electrical engineer when he was called to Columbus to "help at the newspaper." Took over operation of paper when his father died after falling down an elevator shaft at The Evening Republican.
Family Members
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