In celebration of Wednesday Journal’s 45th anniversary this week, we are recognizing the contributions of our former news carriers who for many years made sure subscribers received their papers every Wednesday. Many of these dedicated young people, most of whom were teenagers or younger, got up at the crack of dawn to bundle and deliver the papers before trudging off to school. Below several share their experience and how their first jobs impacted their later lives.
John Register. Taught me self-discipline
John Register claims that he knew how to “fold ‘em and throw ‘em without a rubber band.” Those who know about Register’s remarkable life wouldn’t bet against him. A military veteran, standout Olympic-qualifying athlete and, following a catastrophic injury, a resilient record-setting Paralympian, Register is now a much-in-demand motivational speaker.
In sixth and seventh grades, Register delivered papers for Wednesday Journal as well as for the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. His route covered central Oak Park. He was out the door at 5 a.m. and back home in time to get ready for school.
Walking door to door to collect payments, he charmed his customers into several other lucrative opportunities.
“I was a little hustler,” he said, laughing. “I used that job to get lawn mowing, leaf raking and snow shoveling jobs.”
Following graduation from OPRF and the University of Arkansas, Register enlisted in the US Army and served in the Persian Gulf War. While on active duty, he participated in the Army’s World Class Athletic Program, winning nine gold medals in the Armed Services Competition. He qualified for the 1992 Olympic trials but a track injury in 1994 resulted in the amputation of a leg and prevented him from participating in the 1996 Olympics. After an arduous recovery, Register competed in the 2000 Paralympic Games, earning a silver medal in the long jump, and he founded the US Olympic Committee’s Paralympic Military Program.
“That job throwing papers as a kid taught me the importance of getting up early and the self-discipline to compartmentalize my day, which I still do,” Register said.
Mark Guarino. In touch with readers
Mark Guarino was one of the Journal’s original carriers. He remembers getting the papers on Tuesday nights, bagging them and stuffing them into the canvas bag that he strapped across his shoulder and carried on his two routes in north Oak Park.
“I had a Walkman and was in my own little world,” Guarino said.
One of his fondest memories was the field trip to Great America that Dan Haley, then the publisher, and other Journal staffers took the carriers on as a reward for their hard work.
“I remember piling into his car. He treated us really well, not like kids. He seemed so old at the time, but he was probably only in his 30s. I think he was just as excited to go as we all were,” Guarino said, laughing.
As a student at Loyola University, Guarino wrote a column and served as editor-in-chief of the school paper. He also delivered the papers around campus, which gave him the satisfaction of seeing people reading his work.
“I think about that [news carrier] job often. I learned a lot. So many media organizations are out of touch with their readers. It might be good for them to hand out papers so they have a better idea of how they affect their readers’ lives,” Guarino said.
Guarino is now a producer for ABC News’ Good Morning America, reporting from the central U.S. In the past, he served as the music critic for the Daily Herald and covered Chicago for national news organizations including the Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post and the Guardian. He is the author of Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival, which received Illinois State Historical Society’s Book of the Year in 2024.
Neal Rothschild. Journal. Trap. Michigan Daily. Axios.
For Neal Rothschild, journalism has been part of his DNA. His father, Richard, was a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and his mother, Judith Crown, still writes for Chicago Crain’s Business among other publications.
Rothschild was a Journal news carrier during fourth and fifth grades at Hatch School, serving subscribers in a four-block span of north Oak Park. At OPRF, he was the sports editor for the Trapeze and, at the University of Michigan, he covered sports for the Michigan Daily. Following graduation, he taught English in Romania while taking on freelance assignments for USA Today. Shortly after returning to the States, Rothschild launched a morning news digest podcast and realized that he enjoyed the intersection of news reporting and the strategic role of media. He is now the senior director of editorial strategy and operations at Axios, a national news website.
“When reporting the news, you can be divorced from how readers are consuming the news. But as a news carrier, you get a window into people’s lives—you see their front porch and their gardens. I think being in-tune with your readers is a responsibility [journalists] should take seriously,” Rothschild said.
The Merchen Sisters. Good to have some cash
With six kids, the Merchen family had Journal subscribers living in the 100-300 blocks of South Cuyler covered from 1994 to 2006. The job was handed down from Joe, now 42, to his siblings Emilia, 39; Simona, 37; Carolina, 35; Alex, 33; and, finally, to Olivia, 30.
The siblings often teamed up together and delivered papers after getting home from Beye School.
“We were motivated to have our own money because when you’re one of six kids having some cash was always nice,” said Emilia. “There weren’t a lot of jobs you could do at the age of 10.”
“I was very motivated because there was a candy store, Blase’s, on Lake Street near our house. You could get a pack of Jolly Ranchers for like a quarter,” said Simona.
“As the next generation, I had to convince my parents that I was committed to doing this every Wednesday,” said Carolina. “It was hard work because our arms were so weak and we weighed like 70 pounds and were sometimes carrying 30-pound canvas bags.”
After they outgrew the paper route, some Merchen kids babysat, walked dogs and landed other neighborhood jobs. They got work permits at the age of 14 or 15, which opened a whole new world of work opportunities, including restaurant gigs, chalking baseball diamonds and umpiring for Oak Park Youth Baseball and janitoring.
“A lot of kids today rely on their parents to subsidize them, which is fine, but we were raised with the belief that we should be providing for ourselves. It was exciting to get a check in your name—even if it was only $30 a month and had to be split with your sibling partner,” said Simona.
Today, Emilia is a regional manager for a property management company; Simona oversees finance and compliance for an investment company; and Carolina is an athletic trainer in the sports medicine department at Lurie Children’s Hospital. All three still live in Oak Park — and they still enjoy having their own money.
Nate Dame. Route was a small badge of honor
Nate Dame admits that it was a bit nerve wracking to knock on doors asking people to pay for their newspapers, especially because so many people weren’t home. Dealing with the disappointment of low-to-no tippers developed tough skin.
“None of my friends were paper carriers so I took the job as a small badge of honor—although my friends probably couldn’t have cared less,” Dame said.
Dame took over his route, about three blocks on south Clarence Avenue, from his older brother Jon. He delivered papers after school at Emerson Junior High (now Brooks Middle School). He still proudly wears his Emerson graduation T-shirt with peers’ signatures — much to his wife’s chagrin.
Today, Dame is a search engine optimization (SEO) and digital marketing entrepreneur.
He founded Profound Strategies several years ago and is CEO of Syllabus, a software startup that creates attention-getting content, through Google searches and AI, for clients.
“As a news carrier, I used to deliver great content in middle school. Today I do the same thing but with new technologies,” Dame said.