 In 1922, he graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Oregon.He worked in the newspaper and lumber industries in the 1920s, and was an associate professor of journalism at the University of Oregon in 1928 and 1929.While serving as manager of the Oregon State Editorial Association (now the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association), in 1929, he purchased an interest in "The Roseburg News-Review", eventually becoming its editor and publisher.