Buena Vista County, IA
IAGenWeb Project

Success in life depends largely upon getting into the place for which one is the best adapted.  There are so many misfits in human life, that one is really fortunate who discovers the right profession, business or trade which is the proper field to develop the natural tendencies of his mind and purpose of his ambition.  There is no question that when Clair Eldred Ryder made a choice of the printer's trade with the ambition to some day [sic] become a publisher that he got into the right place.  Starting out early in life to acquire a thorough knowledge of the printer's art, he soon proved his adaptation to that profession.  Within less than four years from the time he first entered an office as apprentice he is found employed on a newspaper and very soon is made foreman of the office.

Mr. Ryder was born in Adel, Iowa, in 1879, a son of Alonzo John and Rhoda (Black) Ryder, natives of Three Rivers, Michigan, and Princeton, Illinois, respectively.  The father was a contractor and died in 1886 aged forty-six years.  The mother lives in Hammond, Louisiana.

C. N. Ryder was educated in the public schools and is a graduate of the high school at Adel, Iowa.  After leaving school he started to learn the printer's trade and worked about four years in Adel.  He was then employed on the Montezuma Republican and soon afterward became foreman of that office.  After a time, desiring to find an opening in a larger place, he went to Des Moines and was soon engaged by the Des Moines Newspaper Union and held cases in that office for several months.  He then returned to Adel and accepted the position of foreman in the office where he had learned his trade, remaining there a short time.  He next went to Guthrie Center, Iowa, where he was employed for a time as foreman on a local paper, and from there to Manson, Iowa, being foreman on the Manson Journal for about five years and one year on the Sioux City Journal.

In November, 1907, Mr. Ryder came to Sioux Rapids, and in company with George M. Sherman bought out the Republican Press.  The Press has long been established, and under the present management it is increasing in circulation and taking a front rank among the newspapers of the northwest.  Mr. Ryder, like his partner, C. E. Sherman, is built on the broad-gauge order and both of these gentlemen are fast winning for themselves hosts of friends and the good will of the general public.