Entered college at the time of the Depression.
He subsisted on cornflakes and milk. His diet earned him the nickname “Slim” because he was thin.
In 1937, Slim graduated with a Bachelor of Science in printing and journalism.
His daughter, Ruth Pangborn, remembers him telling her about harvesting corn manually. He would have corn picks on each hand and then walk down the rows, snapping the corn ears so they would fall to the ground. Then, he would walk back to pick the ears of corn up and place them on a wagon pulled by mules or horses.
Norman met Margaret Sias Albee, a native Midlander. They married in 1938.
In 1942, Norman was called to active duty as a first lieutenant with the U.S. Army and served in Washington, D.C., until December 1945.
Came to Midland, Michigan, in 1937, a college graduate from South Dakota State College, to start work at the local newspaper. Slim worked his way up from being a wire editor to being named Publisher Emeritus in 1980 when he retired.
When asked how he could turn out editorials day after day, year after year, he replied, “Well, you apply the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair.”.
A colleague who was a mentee of Norman’s shared in Norman’s eulogy, “He taught me that ‘credibility’ and ‘ethics’ were non-negotiable. He didn’t pontificate about integrity; he simply practices it and demanded it of anyone associated with him.”
Cancer treatment had been made available at virtually no cost to residents of our area through Slim Rumple’s leadership of the Pardee Cancer Treatment Fund.
Rumple had been involved in 37 fraternal, religious, and civic organizations. He was a founding Trustee of the Midland Foundation.
In a nomination letter to the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame on Slim’s behalf, Carl Gerstacker wrote, “Slim’s commitment to our community has been, and still is, constant; and personal gain has never been a consideration.”
Rumple passed away in 1996 at 82 years old.