For more than a century, the Nome Nugget and the Wrangell Sentinel have been dishing up local news and views, and the owners at both of the state's most venerable newspapers are eager to keep the presses rolling into the new millennium.

In Nome, the editor is struggling to maintain independent ownership, while in Wrangell the owner recently agreed to join forces with another publication.From gold rush to cyberspaceIn the summer of 1900, the rollicking gold rush destination of Nome was the biggest city in Alaska, with more than 20,000 residents. Ten years later, most of the gold was gone and the population had dropped to what it is now - approximately 3,500 souls.

Another thing in the Bering seacoast town has remained constant over the past century: If something made news on the Seward Peninsula, you could probably read about it in the Nome Nugget newspaper.

Nancy McGuire, the paper's owner and publisher for the past two decades, said she decided to purchase the Nugget after volunteering at the newspaper for about three years.

"I bought it on New Year's Day, 1982. That's how I worked my way up into the business," McGuire said. "I didn't know a damn thing about journalism when I came up here. But I had been a high school and college science teacher. And understanding science helped me to understand how to ask questions and demand answers."

Keeping advertising accounts coming in the door is obviously the toughest challenge for the business, she said. And with a robust weekly circulation of about 6,000 copies, the paper has attracted several unsolicited buyout and expansion offers. McGuire is not interested.

"We've fought off a lot of people who think we have to have two newspapers in this town." she said. "There are 3,000 people here. Jeeze, Anchorage can't support two newspapers."

The Nugget covers regional news - items from Kotzebue to Shaktoolik and all points between - and McGuire said the paper maintains a close relationship with its readers.

"I think the biggest story of all is the community itself, and the people in the region. They are good folks and I love them," she said. "I often hold them to task for things, but I find that this is a very good town and region."

McGuire said the key to good small-town journalism is to be balanced.

"I find that I try very much to give everybody an equal say, an equal chance to voice their opinions," she said. "And if they are too chicken to sign their letters to the editor, then I won't print them."

To visitors, Nome may seem like it is at the edge of nowhere. But McGuire said the Nugget has kept up with modern technology.

"We needed to get online. So we started our own Internet service up here, Nomenet, back in 1995," she said. She and her staff have also taught themselves modern desktop publishing techniques, and in some cases they wrote their own software programs, McGuire said.

"All of my employees, they work their butts off for this paper."

McGuire acknowledged that the profit margin for running a small town publication can be paper thin.

"We're not making the big bucks here. We make money and spend it. Sometimes we spend it and then make the money," she joked.Southeast survival storyPublication of the Nome Nugget was suspended temporarily during World War II, and that gives the Wrangell Sentinel the right to call itself the longest continually operating newspaper in Alaska.

The first issue came out on Nov. 20, 1902, and the paper is still meeting its mission of serving the Southeast community, said editor Seanne Gillen Saunders.

She said the weekly paper has a circulation of about 1,500, and it reflects the tenacity of its readers.

The Wrangell Sentinel will continue publishing in its second century thanks to a change in ownership announced Dec. 1. PHOTO/Bonnie Demerjian/Wrangell Sentinel

The economy in Wrangell is supported by commercial fishing and logging, Saunders said, but jobs at the local timber mill have been hard to come by lately.

"It comes and goes. They'll employ people for a few months and then cut back or shut down," she said. "They claim they are going to go back to work this spring, so we'll see."

Saunders bought the Sentinel in 1996 from journalist Larry Persily. Now, the relationship has come full circle, with Persily helping to arrange financial backing for the sale of the Sentinel to the Pilot. Persily also said a struggling economy was a steady source of news and opinion pieces for the paper.

Persily recalled that despite experiencing financial hard times, many residents were known for pulling practical jokes to liven things up.

"One time, a top executive from National Bank of Alaska was due to visit the local branch office," Persily said. "And some guys took a big blue tarp, painted 'First National Bank of Anchorage' on it, and draped it over the NBA sign at the bank."

Persily said bank employees removed the fake sign before the boss saw it, but not before he got a picture of it for the Sentinel.

And even two decades ago, Persily said, the status of the timber mill was always a major story for the town. He said it was often difficult to get information from the parent company in Japan, so the newspaper took an unusual step for a small publication.

"We weren't getting anywhere, finding out what was going on, so we actually hired a stringer in Tokyo," Persily said. He said the reporter wrote the stories under a pseudonym. "If the sources knew who he was, they wouldn't talk to him. So he used his wife's maiden name."

Persily and Saunders both said there is a special feeling about operating a newspaper in a close-knit community.

"You get to know everyone in town, and they get to know you," Persily said. "It teaches you that maybe life is better with no secrets."

Saunders said while the economy of Wrangell can be difficult to deal with, the newspaper will be there for the next generation of readers.

"I hope the Sentinel will be around for another hundred years," she said.