Ed Stepski placed an ink-stained finger on the bottom corner of the newspaper. It was a test page, and the yellow bled from the corners of the small registration box, blurring the picture at the top and any colour that appeared in between.
Every shift the veteran Citizen pressman lines up all four colours in that box before he'll let the print fly off the machine.
"My biggest accomplishment is trying to do everything to perfection," said Stepski, who retires June 2 after 41 years, giving up his mantle as the paper's most veteran worker.
"There's no such thing as good enough, it's got to be as good as you can get it."
Over the years he's flipped thousands upon thousands of pages to make sure they're just right.
"It only takes one paper that's out and a customer gets it," said Stepski, 64. "It doesn't matter if they're reading the comics or the front page or the middle, it's always got to be good."
Forty has been a lucky number for him. The longtime foreman is coming up on that wedding anniversary, has been coaching youth bowling for four decades, and has rounded that corner at The Citizen.
Stepski has actually been in the newspaper business for half a century.
At 14, his mother got sick, leaving his father as the only income-earner to feed the five kids.
So he left school in Grade 10 and didn't look back.
He joined his father sorting and delivering mail. And while his father continued his 12-hour plus days by driving The Citizen to Quesnel, Stepski started hawking the paper in downtown Prince George.
He didn't have any special tricks, but he set a lofty goal of selling 40 or 50 copies a day.
"I just hustled," Stepski said.
But it was his choice of hustle - the bars clustered in the city's urban strip - that made him so successful.
"Once I got going on it, everybody knew who I was and that was my route," said Stepski.
Most often pub patrons would toss him two bits - 25 cents - quite the mark-up for the 10-cent paper.
Did the drink help with that price point?
"Oh, probably," he said with a laugh.
It was good business and Stepski was good at it.
"I just continued on from there," he said.
After a two-year sojourn in Victoria and a first failed marriage, Stepski returned home and was soon back on the mail route with his parents, and working part-time in The Citizen's mailroom.
Just around the corner, the printing press would hum and vibrate, spitting out thousands of pages.
"It was intriguing," Stepski said.
"I thought this would be a good job to get into. Newspapers are going to be around for quite awhile."
Stepski still thinks Prince George wants its news in print.
Born and raised in the city, he's had enough occasions to chat with readers loyal to the form - especially the older folks.
"They don't want to see (news) on the internet. They want to read it themselves in their hot little hands."
He still loves the part he plays in putting the paper in those hands.
"There's something different going on every day. Even today," he said. "You never learn it all."
He's watched technology transform the role, especially in the pre-production stages. The page plates destined for the printer weren't always prepared by machines.
"We would pair up all the pages ourselves. Then we'd have to rub up the plates," recalled Stepski of the time-consuming process, before it went to the plate burner.
"That burnt the image onto the plate. Then you had to develop it up with a chemical, then you had to gum it to keep it clean."
He's watched a bustling Brunswick Street site shrink over the years, as the daily press run has gone from 24,000 copies to less than half that.
"It's really phenomenal to see that the paper still gets out with the amount of people that they have," he said, recalling there used to be well over 100 employees.
"That's the way the economy's been, it's tight. It's like every job where you're working with less so you've got to do what you can do to keep the newspaper's in business because if it's not in business you're not working. Period."
But the printing part of the equation hasn't changed much, he said.
The Citizen still houses its 1963 printing press.
"Now it's more maintenance," he said, and making sure the massive rolls don't run out, the ink is full and the pages come out perfect.
As a foreman for the last 20 years he's learned it's important to stay controlled.
"If something breaks down you fix it. Get it done as quick as you can, get it up and running again, try not to miss the deadlines and away you go."
There were two close calls.
About five years ago, a breaker blew, keeping the pressmen waiting for a fix until 5 a.m. to print 4,000 copies - a print job that would only take 15 minutes.
Another time, an electrical problem put the press out of commission, so two of the younger workers drove to Kamloops and had the copies back in Prince George by morning.
"There was still a paper," he said.
The only time Stepski missed work for any length of time was in his 30s when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Less than two months later, he was back in the pressroom.
Stepski said it's important to keep plugging along, whatever happens.
"You've got to overcome difficulties," he said.
"You've got to be strong and you have to have a positive attitude and you can beat anything."
His co-workers have helped him in tough times. When Stepski clears out his locker and hangs up his coveralls next week, he said it's his friends that he'll miss the most.
"There's been quite a few people that have helped me out and kept me on the right track," he said, calling them his rocks. "People that you can lean on, just listen to everything you have to say.
"It's been a great journey," he said, and though he's looking forward to his next journey, he's sad to say goodbye.
"When you enjoy coming to work every day, that's a good thing."
