Thankful for Mr. Goodfellow

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We have a lot be thankful for as we celebrate Thanksgiving next week. At the Times Pilot, we’re especially thankful for all the generous readers who have helped clothe deserving kids through our annual Mr. Goodfellow campaign.

For 101 years Mr. Goodfellow has supplied warm winter clothes to our community’s children who need coats, hats and gloves, but their families can’t afford them. Mr. Goodfellow is probably the oldest continuously operating charity in the county. If there’s an older charity, let us know so we can acknowledge you too.

Mr. Goodfellow was W.C. “Bill” Jarnagin. He left a job as managing editor of the Des Moines Capital newspaper in 1922 to move to Storm Lake and publish the newspapers here. He built a national reputation here for newspaper excellence. And he was a solid booster of The City Beautiful.

In 1925 Jarnagin began the annual Mr. Goodfellow campaign at the holidays to help outfit needy kids in town. Readers responded generously and the tradition has continued uninterrupted through seven ownership changes over the past century. We picked up the baton three years ago when we combined the Times and Pilot-Tribune into the Times Pilot.

I was fortunate to have known Bill Jarnagin, who published the Storm Lake papers for 45 years until 1970, when he and his son Phil sold to John B. Anderson and Leo Mores. Bill died a year later at age 92. When I came to work at the newspaper in 1972, Phil — although he was retired — still came into the office every day and greeted everyone with a hearty “Hello, scribes!” Phil passed away in 2003 just a month short of age 99.

Bill Jarnagin was a Lou Grant-type of editor — a principled newsman and fierce competitor who did not suffer fools gladly. But he was devoted to this community and its children. Phil was the official scorer at Storm Lake High School basketball games for decades — he also wrote all the sports for years — and the Jarnagins were generous donors to Buena Vista University.

Originally Mr. Goodfellow served primarily Storm Lake kids, but in recent years it has expanded to help students throughout Buena Vista County. Kindhearted teachers and staff in the schools know which families need help and buy the kids clothes, and Mr. Goodfellow picks up the tab. Back in the days of the Great Depression, when gas was only 19 cents a gallon, Mr. Goodfellow could take care of the kids for a couple hundred dollars. Last year’s requests totaled more than $15,000, but for a couple years following Covid the annual tally ran to more than $32,000. Regardless of the amount, our readers have met the challenge for more than a century.

Every penny is used for clothes. Dolores Cullen at the Times Pilot coordinates the program with the schools and this newspaper covers all administrative expenses so 100% of the money donated by you generous readers goes directly to the kids’ needs.

If you’d like to help — and we hope you do — you can mail your contribution to:

Mr. Goodfellow

Storm Lake Times Pilot

PO Box 487

Storm Lake, IA 50588

You can also stop by our office at 220 W. Railroad Street, donate online or scan the QR code with your cellphone.

Whatever you do, we’re thankful for all of you! Happy Thanksgiving!