On a recent weekday morning, 23-year-old Kadee Holmes stood atop The Dispatch’s 70-plus-years-old Goss Urbanite printing press directing a stream of black ink into one of 10 wells that deliver ink to the press’ rollers.

Though not strenuous, the work is dirty. The patina of ink the old press has acquired over the years is easily transferred to skin and clothes.

Once the ink and the water wells are filled, Kadee will remove metal plates from the previous day’s run.

Then she will begin the plate-making process, transferring computer files of the pages in the day’s newspaper to a processor. As the plates emerge from the processor, she punches and bends the plates and, with lead pressman, Tom Hudson. puts them on the press.

By 10 most mornings, Hudson will ease to life this hulking apparatus that looks to be a relic of the industrial age.

As the press begins to rotate, its two operators, like kids climbing on a jungle gym, adjust the flow of ink and the path of newsprint as it moves through the press.

When they are satisfied with the print quality, Hudson will put a green card in the stream of newspapers traveling by conveyor to the mailroom, indicating “good” papers and will increase the speed of the press.

Over the next hour and a half, the two pressmen will continue to monitor and make adjustments throughout the run. Another day’s newspaper is born.

Some folks run the other way when they sniff work. Such was never the case with Kadee Holmes.

As a child she helped her grandfather John Oswalt work on lawnmowers, something she still does.

As she is with the printing press, Kadee was intrigued with the mechanics of the machines.

Later on horses came into the picture. First it was pleasure riding, then barrel racing and then working as a ranch hand at Joe Gillis’ horse farm on Old West Point Road.

“They’re like giant dogs,” She says about horses. “Some of them you can build a relationship with like you can with a dog.”

When her mother, Lisa, worked at The Dispatch, and the downtown carrier retired, Kadee took the route delivering the newspaper to downtown businesses.

“It was nice getting outside and walking around,” she said about her paper route. “Everyone was so nice.”

Kadee then started working part-time in customer service at the newspaper.

About a year ago, another opportunity to learn and grow soon presented itself. The paper was short a pressman.

Generally speaking most of The Dispatch press crew looks like they’ve been ordered up from central casting, grizzled old-timers, usually gruff and taciturn.

Needless to say, Kadee, who has youth, a bright personality and  goes to the gym most days, does not fit that profile.

In the electronic present we live in, newspaper pressmen are a bit like farriers or coopers: They are hard to find. As is the case with most newspapers, The Dispatch has had to grow its own.

When Dispatch production manager Mike Floyd asked Kadee if she was interested in assisting lead pressman Tom Hudson, she, not surprisingly, said yes.

As with her grandfather’s lawnmowers, Kadee was intrigued with the mechanics of the job. And undaunted by the challenge … and the setting.

“I liked how it all worked,” she said, “I wanted to be around the machine.”

Kadee’s hours, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. most weekdays and 6 or 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. on Saturday nights/Sunday mornings, are not conducive to an active social life. She’s fine with that.

“It’s a rush,” she says about running the press. “There are a lot of little parts that control a lot of little things.”

Hudson is effusive in his praise of the young press operator.

“She’s quick; she’s willing to learn,” he said. “If I had one more like her, we’d have it made.”

Birney Imes ([email protected]) is the former publisher of The Dispatch.

Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.