of the Newsboy would give flying lessons in the morning, then deliver the day's papers in the afternoon. To emphasize the newspaper's connection with aviation, a new nameplate was introduced, with wings behind the name and airplanes on either side. Whether or not because of the airplane, the circulation of the Gazette increased from 2800 in 1928 to 4500 in 1930. Delivery by air lasted for less than a year. In May 1930, the Newsboy was damaged by high winds while parked at the McCook airport. Strunk opted not to repair it and return it to service, citing "week after week of inclement weather, during which time we have found it impossible to fly our route on schedule". The airplane was not yet built, he wrote, that could "fly successfully in rain, wind, sleet, snow and fog." A few major metropolitan newspapers had made short-term experiments with air delivery in 1928 and 1929. However, the months-long effort by the Gazette made it the first newspaper to conduct regular deliveries by air. After the Newsboy was taken out of service, it was sold and restored several times. In 1972, it was placed on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. 1930–1960 The end of the aviation experiment forced the Gazette to return to ground-based delivery. Newspapers for outlying communities were transported there on commercial buses running through McCook; local carriers picked them up at their towns' bus stops. Same-day delivery was no longer possible for subscribers in communities off the main highways; they had to settle for next-day delivery. In 1934, the Gazette absorbed the South Side Sentinel of Marion, Nebraska. In 1936, it acquired the triweekly McCook Tribune, at which Strunk had worked on his arrival in McCook. Later, in 1957, it absorbed the Red Willow County Reporter. On the eve of World War II, the Gazette acquired one of the last teletypesetters manufactured. With this machine, the paper could be produced with only two printers; this allowed it to remain in production at a time when Linotype operators were in short supply because of the war. The Gazette made a second attempt at air delivery in 1950. For four years, a Cessna 120 was used to deliver papers to outlying communities. The high cost of operating the airplane, and the increasing availability of good roads for ground delivery, ended the venture. The plane was replaced by a fleet