In every small town there are people whose work becomes part of the place itself. In Owen, Wisconsin, one of those people was James Raymond Barager—known to most simply as “J.R.” For many years, J.R. was the face and voice behind the Owen Enterprise, the weekly newspaper that helped tell the story of Owen, Withee, Curtiss, and the surrounding farm country of northern Clark County and southern Taylor County.
J.R. was born in Withee on May 24, 1916, and grew up in a family already deeply connected to the newspaper business. The Owen Enterprise began publication in the early 1900s and was published in its early years by members of the Barager family. By the time J.R. entered the business, he represented a third generation that understood what a rural weekly newspaper meant to its readers: local news, community bulletin board, and scrapbook.
I didn’t know J.R. personally, but I was a school classmate of his children. As a student, I remember him as a local school board member. And like nearly everyone in town, I read his weekly Owen Enterprise. He was a newspaperman in the old-fashioned sense: editor, publisher, and storyteller all rolled into one. In a rural community, the editor knew the rhythms of the place—school board meetings, church dinners, high school sports games, farm auctions, and the ordinary events that made up community life.
J.R. cared deeply about Owen and Withee. He believed small towns mattered, and he used the pages of the Enterprise to remind people of that fact. A good weekly newspaperman could celebrate a new business opening, mourn a neighbor’s passing, and preserve the names of students, veterans, and farmers who might otherwise fade from memory. Under J.R.’s leadership, the newspaper helped give the area a shared voice.
His interests reached beyond the city limits. J.R. was widely known as an enthusiastic sports fan. He followed the Wisconsin Badgers, the Green Bay Packers, and, before the Braves moved away from Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Braves. Like many Wisconsinites of his generation, he understood sports as another thread tying communities together—something to talk about at the barbershop, post office, or local store.
J.R.’s life also reflected the broader service of his generation. Records show that he enlisted in the United States Army in July 1942, during World War II. After the war years, he returned to the work that would define him: printing the news, shaping opinions, and keeping a small-town newspaper alive when such papers were often the most important source of local information.
His sudden death in June 1976, at the age of 60, shocked Owen and the surrounding area. The loss was personal for his family and friends, but it was also civic. A community had lost one of its principal record keepers. His wife, Virginia Barager, carried on after his death, serving as publisher-editor of the Owen Enterprise from 1976 until 1989 and continuing the family’s long association with the paper and community.
J.R.’s influence also reached beyond Owen and Withee. His 1976 induction into the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Hall of Fame recognized a career that mattered not only locally, but to Wisconsin newspapering more broadly. Today, his legacy lives in the idea that local history is worth recording, that small-town achievements deserve ink, and that a community is stronger when someone is paying attention.
What would J.R. think about today’s world of the internet, social media, and AI? It’s only speculation, but I suspect he would embrace the tools while still asking the newspaperman’s questions: Who checked the facts? What are the sources? Who is responsible if the story is wrong? One of my lasting impressions of J.R. was that he had opinions, but he was first interested in what his readers thought. By his actions, he showed that one learns more by listening than by talking—or writing.
We miss you, J.R. Thanks for leaving us that legacy.