Dad feels sting of grad photo error

When I published a small group of newspapers in Shenandoah, Iowa, I often was reminded of challenges my customers faced when they called me at night to deliver a newspaper missed by one of our independent contractors.

On one occasion, as a customer drove home a point about service — or more appropriately, a general lack of service — I replied I felt his pain because on that particular night, I hadn’t received my home-delivered copy of the newspaper, either.

“It’s pretty bad when the publisher doesn’t rank any higher than anyone else on the route,” the subscriber said.

We both chuckled, and I apologized.

Then I finished out my “route,” by dropping off a copy of the newspaper to my wife.

Before last week, I hadn’t thought about that event for at least a couple of years.

But, publishing the newspaper’s annual senior graduation edition drove home the reminder that sometimes, I’m still a lot like a subscriber.

When I saw a copy of the keepsake special section, first I put on my production hat — checking the color ink registration on the front cover before opening it to look at the content.

Then, I put on my dad hat.

My wife and I had placed a congratulatory advertisement to our daughter, who started counting down to her last day of school sometime back in 2004.

Quickly I thumbed through the pages and found our advertisement.

“Perfect,” I thought.

It showed our feelings without being too gushy. As other parents of high school students probably are aware, there is a fine line between acceptable and, “I’ll never talk to you, again,” when it comes to caring messages that may be seen by peers.

We also had included one of her senior portraits, just so people knew who we were talking about.

I was feeling pretty darned fatherly at that particular moment. There probably was some kind of citation I could apply for that recognized outstanding dad moments.

I was a shoo-in for it.

But, moments later, all that self esteem was dashed when I turned to her class photos and next to her name was a unisex silhouette wearing a graduation cap.

Of course, I double-checked whether I was looking at the right row.

Actually, I looked three or four more times, but her photo never magically appeared.

In that moment, I experienced a whole assortment of emotions. I was angry, hurt and upset.

But mostly, I was disappointed.

Her chance to be in the graduation publication had come and gone in one fell swoop, and I didn’t catch the error.

Worse yet, I was the publisher and dad — and in my mind that meant I should have checked for the mistake.

The event reminded me of something my newspaper editor father used to say about writing obituaries.

“An obituary is the last story you’ll have a chance to write about a person,” he said. “There’s no room for errors.”

At first, I wanted someone to blame, but after collecting my thoughts I admitted what I knew all along.

It was a mistake, plain and simple.

Luckily, my wife had encouraged me to put in a personal note to our daughter — the same blonde-haired young lady who persevered through a number of events and made us the proudest parents attending graduation ceremonies next weekend.

And while the mistake certainly won’t earn me a father-of-the-year award, it helped remind me of something people are guilty of forgetting sometimes.

Mistakes happen. After all, we’re only human.

Ken Knepper is publisher of The Newton Kansan. He can be contacted at kenneth.knepper@thekansan.com.