Cushing Citizen

The Cushing Citizen’s earliest predecessor was Cushing’s first newspaper, the Cushing Herald, first published on July 5, 1895. Its publisher was the young Will Rendall. The newspaper began only three years after Cushing was established as a town in 1892.

The Herald eventually became the Citizen and throughout its 114 year history the newspaper has enjoyed several publishers. Perhaps the most respected and beloved by the community was Otto H. “Lock” and Hattie Mae Lachenmeyer. The couple owned and operated the Citizen from May of 1925 until November of 1965.

"Lock" died in 1952 and Hattie Mae continued responsibilities of the newspaper publication until she sold to Rick Hammell of Hammell Newspapers in Tequesta, Florida, in 1965.

In the spring of 1981, Hammell sold the paper to Jim and Jane Head of Liberal, Kansas who operated the paper until they sold to Francis Stipe and Jim Monroe of Indian Nations Communications in the mid 1980s.

David and Myra Reid moved to Cushing on the first of April 1992 to become the new publishers of the Cushing Daily Citizen. The family returned the newspaper to local ownership and though they enjoyed Cushing and the newspaper work, an offer from Ralph Martin, from Community Newspapers Holdings Inc., was too much to resist. The Reids sold the paper in December of 1997 but remained in Cushing.

In October of 2007, the Reids purchased the assets of the failing Cushing Daily Citizen and converted the paper to twice weekly, moved the company to new offices and returned the company to local ownership.

Today, the Reids and the Citizen staff are committed to providing the community with an all-local newspaper and adding to the operation a vibrant, useful, valuable and easy to navigate website allowing people world-wide to stay in touch with the city of Cushing whether subscribing to the Citizen’s eEdition or enjoying information available free on the site.