We think of influencers today as online computer savvy young people who share their points of view and product placements with thousands, even millions of followers. But a couple of centuries before our modern age, influencers were editorial journalists who wrote for newspapers and magazines (i.e. paper publications). For instance, over a 60-year period, humorist and editorial writer Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle was the most influential person in the city by the Bay.
In Alhambra, the most important influencer and newspaper man for many decades was Warner Jenkins. He was born on April 26, 1914, in Crookston, Minnesota. When he was 13, his family moved to Redondo Beach where he began his journalism career in 1934 at the South Bay Daily Breeze. Shortly after, his newspaper career was abruptly put on hold by World War II.
Like most men his age, Jenkins was a veteran of that war. He served with the Navy in the Pacific aboard a warship as a medic, the closest thing the ship had to a doctor. At least once during the war his ship came under attack from enemy planes that shot at them, wounding men who were shooting back. Without hesitation, Jenkins took over the gun of a fallen sailor, but was called away from gunnery work to patch up the wounded.
After the war, he continued working for the Daily Breeze until moving across town to Alhambra in 1948 and starting at the Post Advocate newspaper. For the next four decades, he served as managing editor, editor, and finally, publisher when he was referred to as the ‘Dean of San Gabriel Valley journalists.’ All the while, he added his voice to the pages of the paper. His popular daily column called “Off the Cuff” was a must read. The column featured stories about the city, important events, the activities of Alhambra residents (a couple of times he even included me in his column).
However, he was never the owner of the Post Advocate and he wanted to have his own paper. So, he started a weekly newspaper called The Alhambra Free Press. He made sure the news was presented with impartiality as newspapers used to do, except for the editorial page where he had his say. The Free Press published for 10 years, between 1960 and 1970, “serving the cities of Alhambra, San Gabriel, El Sereno, Monterey Park, Rosemead, South San Gabriel, and San Marino.”
He and his wife worked hard on that newspaper. His children also worked on the paper. He always wanted to be a “newspaper man,” and for those ten years, he worked on two papers at the same time. He delivered the Alhambra Free Press, rain or shine, and often in person. If he received reports of a missed delivery anywhere, he would get in the car and make sure that the paper got delivered.
During his fabled career, Jenkins interviewed many notables including Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Jim Thorpe (the first Native American to win an Olympic Gold Medal), to name a few. On his watch, the Post Advocate printed local stories such as births, deaths, important meetings, the baseball scores of our Little League teams, schools, and much more.
All the while, he volunteered his time with several organizations including the Alhambra Central Business District Association, the Alhambra Optimist Club, and was President of the Chamber of Commerce. He outlived the Post Advocate which went out of business in 1993. In his final years, he wrote articles for Around Alhambra when his daughter Dulcy Jenkins, who learned the newspaper business from him, was the editor of this paper. She would serve as our editor for 20 years.
Warner Jenkins passed away in 2004 at the age of 90. He was so influential and so popular that the city dedicated a statue of him seated on a bench, which adorns the eastern entrance to Alhambra City Hall.
