Addicted to news in Coeur d'Alene

Sharon Ostrom has been subscribing to The Press for 74 years. 

That is not a typo.

And she plans to keep having it delivered to the door of her Coeur d’Alene home. 

“I’m so used to it, I can’t be without it,” Ostrom said Thursday. 

But she’s not above criticizing the city’s only daily newspaper. In fact, she has quite a bit to say on the matter. 

Ostrom isn’t happy there’s no longer a Monday print edition. She doesn’t care for stories about the goings-on in other North Idaho towns like Wallace and Kellogg. And she said there are days the Spokesman-Review has stories about Coeur d’Alene she didn’t find in The Press. 

“The paper isn’t as good as it used to be,” she said as she sat in her living room, several editions of The Press on a footstool in front of her. “Why do I care what’s going on in some of these other towns? That's my only complaint.”

Yet, every morning, with the exception of Monday, Ostrom eagerly retrieves The Press from her front porch and retreats to her living room. There, she flips through the pages, reading about the local happenings, checking the sports section and lifestyles, looking over national and world events. 

“I kind of like it all," she said.

In the afternoon, some days, she’ll review The Press again to be sure she didn’t miss anything important. 

“I have to have it,” she said. 

She relies on The Press to keep her informed about her hometown of more than half a century. 

“At my age, I don’t know really what’s going on in town,” Ostrom said. 

At 91, she remains sharp and witty. She smiles and laughs often as she chats about life with The Press as her daughter, Michele Lenius, sits in a living room chair. 

Ostrom and her parents moved to Coeur d’Alene from North Dakota more than seven decades ago. At 17, she landed a job downtown. One of the first things she did was subscribe to The Press. 

She doesn’t recall how much a subscription cost, but said it was a good deal. 

“It wasn’t much,” she said.  

Newspapers have been a constant in Ostrom’s life. Growing up in Kenmare, N.D., she subscribed to the local paper. She liked scanning the stories and pictures as she held it in her hands.

“My folks didn’t get it, but I got it,” she said. “So when I came out here, I was so used to getting a paper, when I went to work downtown, I ordered the paper.” 

Ostrom later married and said when her husband, Tom, returned from serving with the Army in the Korean War, they lived in a house on Fifth Street in Coeur d’Alene before having one built on Sixth Street, where Press carriers still bring it to her door. 

For years, Ostrom paid to have the newspaper in Kenmare mailed to her home so she could keep track of old friends.  

“I don’t get it anymore,” she said. “It got to the point where I didn’t know anybody anymore.” 

A few years back, Ostrom even made the pages of The Press herself.

The story goes, daughter Michele said, that she was shoveling snow in front of her home when a firetruck happened to pass by, and firefighters got out to help. A Press photographer showed up to capture the scene.

And decades back, when Ostrom worked for the Alzheimer’s Association, her name often made newsprint.

“You were in the paper a lot, then,” Michele Lenius said. 

Asked how The Press could improve, Ostrom suggested the return of the Monday print edition. 

“I don’t want to sit in another room and read it off a machine,” she said.

She much prefers mornings with The Press in her cozy and warm living room. For Ostrom, that's where a newspaper belongs.

“I just like reading it,” she said. “I’m so used to getting it I can’t give it up.”