Epp, Dan and Jan

When Dan and Jan (Baker) Epp moved to Tribune to help Dan’s parents, Otto and Georgia, with the Greeley County Republican, Dan told Jan that they would be in Tribune for five years, at the most.

Both had been working for Midwest Research Institute, conducting research projects in the economic and management science development division. They fell in love over long lunches and were married in 1979. They lived in Kansas City until 1987, when they moved their young family to Houston, then to Tribune.

Thirty-five years later, they retired as co-editors of the newspaper, having shared a community’s joys and triumphs, heartaches and losses for three decades and more than 1,800 weekly issues. 

They took countless pictures of the community’s youth, reported on an untold number of local government meetings, shared their thoughts and reflections on life, government trials, birds, paradigms, Jackrabbit sports, community events, and in their last few years as editors, their granddaughters. They encouraged residents to think critically about the matters of the week, and shared personal stories that helped build connection and community through the printed word. 

They encouraged residents to be proud of their hometown – their “Only in Tribunes” were a favorite staple, with “All Roads Lead to Tribune” as a close second. They supported the community’s ambition and pushed it to be its best, printing the community’s vision in the masthead from the day it was developed, then updating it as the community did.

Though Dan had grown up in the newspaper business, and spent many of his childhood years in the living quarters in the back of the newspaper office, neither Jan nor Dan had a degree in journalism. Dan holds a bachelor’s degree in math and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University in Kansas. Jan, a Wichita native and a graduate of Wichita East High School, has dual degrees in English and psychology, along with a secondary teaching certificate from Wichita State University. For the Epps, it was just what was. “Although Dan had real life newspaper experience, I was not confined by preconceived ideas of what a newspaper should be,” said Jan.  

Serving as co-editors was more of a natural inclination than a deliberate choice. “We were lucky to have complementary talents and abilities,” said Jan. They shared the writing and the accounting, the layout and design. Jan covered government meetings and left the sports writing to Dan. Dan mostly handled the photography and Jan did the copy editing, as it reminded her of grading papers. Sometimes they used their skills in the same room – “I’d ask the questions and take the pictures,” said Dan, “while she wrote the story on a laptop at the meeting.” 

Both did more than share the news. They became key leaders in Greeley County, initiating a process in 2004 to help rebuild the community by engaging Kansas Communities, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the public square in communities across the state. At the time, Dan said the community was one more business closure, one more failed harvest away from saying, “last one out, turn out the lights.” 

Alongside a local county commissioner, they convened a community conversation with 166 people in attendance, all determined to ensure that Greeley County, Tribune, and Horace would be places to welcome home future generations. Their actions, and the actions of others moving forward from that evening, have led to population growth, school enrollment growth, and a revitalization of the community where Dan helped grab papers off the press beginning at age 2, and where he remembers chasing down the train in Horace to ensure the papers made the mail car by its 8:45 p.m. departure. 

The pair eagerly took on roles of leadership on the hospital and library boards (Jan) and helped in designing Greeley County’s novel unified government (Dan). They spotlighted important issues, providing space for questions and answers regarding pressing ballot issues, publishing candidate perspectives, encouraging residents to keep reaching for progress. 

They were reporters, photographers, editors, and keepers of the community’s history. They were also connectors, engaged citizens, and change makers, participating in community groups such as Community Band, Save the Theater, and the county’s Legislative Action Team.  

When they published their final issue, they had strengthened and solidified the Epp legacy that Otto had begun in 1932. Like Dan’s father had for 60 years, they “encouraged a positive undercurrent for the community. We didn’t avoid bad news, but we didn’t dwell on it,” Jan said. 

The Greeley County community was indelibly touched and strengthened by Dan and Jan’s tenure as co-editors and by the nearly 90-year legacy of the Epp family and the Greeley County Republican. 

In their retirement, the Epps are enjoying spending time with their adult children Aaron and Meagan, as well as spoiling their granddaughters, Jade and Eliza.