Former Daily News editor Rubin saw it all as a journalist

He says advent of computers biggest change in newsroom

Sam Rubin, 89, worked 40 years at the DDN before retiring in 1984 as national news editor. He now lives in Covenant House in Trotwood. Staff photo by Marc Katz

Marc Katz Sam Rubin, 89, worked 40 years at the DDN before retiring in 1984 as national news editor. He now lives in Covenant House in Trotwood. Staff photo by Marc Katz

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By Marc Katz, Staff Writer 4:07 PM Friday, August 27, 2010

TROTWOOD — Sure he knows how to use a computer now, and even though he remains partial to newspapers, Sam Rubin says sometimes his eyes don’t let him focus on newsprint the way they used to.

Rubin should know plenty about both. He worked at the Dayton Daily News for 40 years, retiring in 1984 as national news editor.

Next April, he turns 90.  He spends most of his time at the Jewish Federation’s Covenant House, keeping in touch with the rest of the world through television and his computer.

“I remember (in the early 1970s) when we first had computers,” Rubin said. “They locked us in a room and told us we had to learn how to use them.

“Then I had to come in at 4 a.m. to clean out the reports from the day before. They only held so much.”

A 1939 graduate of Stivers High School, Rubin scored his first job at the newspaper on the switch board, where he worked for “Mrs. Eleanor Hopkins, who ran the place.”

It was Si Burick’s brother, Marvin, who also worked at the Daily News and was a Stivers student, who helped him land the job while he was still in school.

Following graduation, Rubin worked in the sports department, covering mostly high school football and basketball games.

“There was no such thing as soccer in those days,” Rubin said.

By 1942, he enlisted in the Marines because he didn’t want to go into the Army.

He went to the Pacific, landing at Iwo Jima just after the Americans planted their flag there.

In 1946, he was back at the Daily News, at first in sports, then at other jobs until he landed on the news desk under Carl Beyer, along with editor Jim Fain, two of the “smartest people I ever knew,” Rubin said.

Easily the biggest story he ever worked on was President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

“We worked around the clock on that one,” Rubin said. “Those were the days people were reading newspapers. We put out special editions.”

After he left the Daily News, he volunteered at Good Samaritan Hospital and did a little traveling with his wife, Lore, before she passed away two years ago.

He has a daughter, Karen, married to a rabbi, who lives in Pickerington, Ohio.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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