Longtime Sun printer Harding dies at 88

Irving Frank "Irv" Harding, the Las Vegas Sun's first photosetter operator who helped usher in the age of Linotype which replaced the old hot-lead technology at the newspaper, has died. He was 88.

Harding, who worked for the Sun for 25 years and trained numerous composing room workers in the typographical arts, died Saturday of cancer in Las Vegas.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 38 years will be 3:30 p.m. today at Davis Paradise Valley Funeral Home Chapel. Interment will be in Paradise Memorial Gardens.

"Irv had a total dedication to the Las Vegas Sun and did all he could to help make it the best newspaper it could be," said Rex Taylor, the Sun's production director, who was Harding's longtime friend and co-worker.

In the early 1960s, the Sun upgraded its composition operation by bringing in the photosetter machine. Harding was assigned to operate the machine, which featured a cartridge with tape-like film on which news stories were typeset in various pica widths.

"Irv spent many years training others to use the machine until we phased it out around 1972 for newer technology," Taylor said. "After that, Irv worked as a compositor until his retirement in 1985 at age 75."

A compositor cuts and pastes columns of typeset news stories onto large sheets of paper which are then shot onto metal plates that are attached to the presses to print the newspaper.

Born July 7, 1910, in Buffalo, N.Y., Harding entered the printing business at age 21. He worked for Moore Business Forms in Buffalo for 29 years. He boasted that it was one of only two jobs he had in his life.

In 1960, Harding moved to Las Vegas, where only one of the town's two daily newspapers had a union print shop -- the Sun, which hired him because of his vast experience.

"Irv enjoyed the simple pleasures in life," Taylor said. "He would go to the old Sunset Bar (on Main Street near Charleston, once a popular hangout for Sun workers) and eat a chocolate eclair, which he would wash down with a beer.

"Fellow Sun employees would grab their stomachs and moan as he sat back and enjoyed that unusual combination."

Harding was a longtime member of the Typographical Union No. 933 and later the Communications Workers of America. He also was a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles No. 1312.

He is survived by his wife, Fern of Las Vegas; a son, Charles of Grand Island, N.Y.; two daughters, Barbara Radley of Kenmore, N.Y., and Susan Downs of Littleton, Colo.; 12 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

DONATIONS: In Harding's memory to the Sun Camp Fund, 800 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas NV 89107.

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