John Zollinger, area newspaper pioneer, dies

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

John K. Zollinger

GALLUP — The man who made a small-town daily into the most read daily publication on the sprawling Navajo Reservation died late Friday after a long illness.

John K. Zollinger, 86, came to Gallup with his wife and three children on Jan. 1, 1964, to take over a 3,500 daily newspaper that everyone admitted had seen better days.

But over the next 20 years, he expanded the reach of the paper onto the Zuni, Hopi and Navajo reservations and by doing so helped make Gallup the area shopping mecca it would become.

Family members said late Sunday that funeral arrangements were still pending. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Howard Graves, who was the Albuquerque bureau chief for the Associated Press when Zollinger purchased the paper, saw him as a top professional who came in and made a number of changes to the Independent that benefited the paper and the Gallup community. “I had a lot of respect for him.”

He was also respected by some of Gallup’s top political leaders.

On the occasion of his 85th birthday on Feb. 4, 2006, former Gallup Mayor Robert Rosebrough talked about the appeal many people in Gallup had for the man.

“Mr. Zollinger reminds me of Jimmy Carter,” he said at the time. “He has aged very well and with dignity.”

City Councilor Pat Butler, whose father, Gerald, was friends with Zollinger for more than 30 years, praised Zollinger for his honesty and integrity as a publisher of the Independent. A former councilwoman, Mary Ann Armijo, also praised Zollinger in 2006 saying “he’s been a wonderful asset to the community of Gallup.”

Over his years here in Gallup, Zollinger made a number of long-term friends, some of who would go with his and his wife, Martha, when they would travel the globe in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, hitting a number of countries in Europe, Africa, South America and the Pacific.

One of these was Paul Merrill, from Ramah, who, upon hearing of Zollinger’s passing, said “he was one of the kindest persons you could ever meet. He was one of the best friends I have ever had.”

Zollinger spent several summer vacations as a volunteer with the National Geographic Magazine expeditions where he helped dig, sort and catalogue the ruins of ancient churches in Lyon, France. He also participated in similar expeditions in the jungles of Jamaica.

Gallup’s current mayor, Harry Mendoza, said that initially, he and Zollinger didn’t exactly get along but as they got to know each other, “we became supportive of each other. My heartfelt sympathies go out to his family.”

Early life
Born in Piqua, Ohio, Zollinger graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and then enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in WWII, serving as a navigator and seeing action in the Pacific Theater. As navigator for the lead attack plane, he often found himself in a pivotal role in the ensuing air battle.

After the war, he thought about becoming a minister but fate intervened and he was offered the position as an advertising salesman in Sidney, Ohio. From there he went to a couple of more newspapers in Marion and Ironton, both in Ohio. He eventually found himself in Crawley, La., as part owner of a newspaper there.

When he and his partner had a major disagreement over the future of that paper, Zollinger decided that it was time for him to buy his own newspaper and he looked at newspapers in New Mexico , South Carolina or South Dakota. He questioned the future potential of the other two so he talked to Lincoln O’Brien, who owned the Gallup Independent, made a down payment and found himself owner of the Independent.

As the story goes, O’Brien felt he made a great deal because the newspaper was struggling and he thought there was a good possibility that Zollinger would miss a couple of payments and he would be able to take the newspaper over again. But Zollinger said later that he made sure that the payment to O’Brien went out on time.

Once, he said, the check must have gotten delayed because O’Brien called him up saying the day after it was due and wondering where his payment was. “I told him that the check had been mailed and should be there that day or the next,” he said one time. “After that I made sure to send the checks a little earlier.”

His son, Robert, who is now publisher and majority owner of the newspaper, remembers those early months. “He would make a little one month and lose a little the next month and it would go on like this for several months until he started getting in the black every month,” he said.

His father never once, either directly or indirectly, indicated he felt he had made a bad decision, the younger Zollinger said.

Tragedy struck the family in April, 1968, when their daughter, Mary Ann, who was in high school, died suddenly. Photos of her hung on his wall at the Independent up to a few months before he died and it was something, he would say in his later years, that he would never get over.

A couple of years later, he made a decision that would have a profound impact not only on the paper but the Gallup community as well.

At that time, the Navajo Reservation was basically a virgin territory with no area newspaper serving its more than 100,000 residents.

But Zollinger felt that this readership was worth seeking, not only to increase readership for the newspaper but it would also increase business for those who advertised in the newspaper.

Because of this, said former Gallup Chamber of Commerce Director Herb Mosher, everyone in town benefited.

Because of John Zollinger and his leadership at the Independent, “Gallup is more recognized, is more appreciated and is more prosperous.” Mosher said.

Turning over control
He continued running the day-to-day operations of the newspaper until he turned it over to his son in 1984 but he still remained at the newspaper, serving as chairman of the board of the company, a position he held until his death.

Many of his friends commented that he was not as energetic in the last few years of his life as he was when he was running the newspaper. He had a stroke, was dealing with skin cancer and was growing deaf. But he still came into the office almost every day and also on most weekends. Oftentimes he would be seen in the last few years in the newspaper’s pressroom looking on in almost childish delight as he watched the newspaper’s new press churning out newspapers and worrying about whether the newspaper was going out on time.

“Is it done yet?” was something that everyone heard almost on a daily basis as John Zollinger stressed to the very end that a missed deadline not only affected the bottom line but it would mean that the newspaper would get to the readers late.

He continued reading the newspaper almost up to the day he died and he never stopped trying to improve it. Just a couple of weeks before his death, he complained loud and long after those ugly spaces that the newspaper puts between paragraphs when the story comes out a little short.

“Tell the people at the newspaper to stop doing that and put in a brief at the end of the story,” he said.

A generous man
A number of people who were interviewed also commented on his generosity to the community over the years and especially to the University of New Mexico-Gallup campus, which named the college’s library after Mary Ann Zollinger, and the Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital, which named a waiting room after his family as thanks for their continued financial support,

In later years, he spent most of his time at home or at the newspaper but people throughout Gallup probably saw him without knowing it.

His figure is shown on the “We the People” mural on Montoya Boulevard. He’s on the west side of the mural, full-sized, holding up — what else — a newspaper, with a beret on his head, looking like an old-time corner newspaper seller.

A better rendition can be seen on the front wall of the Gallup Municipal Building on Boardman. He can be seen on the bottom of the panel where he is — what else — reading a newspaper.

Over the years he has been honored by a number of organizations, including the Gallup Chamber of Commerce and the Navajo Nation, which in 2004 named his as a “Friend of the Navajo.”

He requested before his death that his organs be donated to someone who needs them and also asked that his body be cremated.

Besides his wife and son, he is survived by another son, Jack and his wife, Jane, and Robert’s wife, Karen, and four grandchildren, Mary Donahue, Tara Henderson and Daniel and Rachel Zollinger.

In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations to the Mary Ann Zollinger Scholarship Fund at UNM-Gallup.
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.,m. Friday at the Church of the Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Gallup.