Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

KALAMAZOO, MI — It's the smell of the Michigan News Agency, that scent of paper and print, that connects one to Kalamazoo's past.

The smell is very 20th-Century.

The people of Kalamazoo, from mayors and authors to her many regular customers, visited the bookstore/newsstand one last time, May 2, to remember owner Dean Hauck, and the shop that never closed on Michigan Avenue since 1947.

Hauck was a fixture behind the counter until Feb. 8, when she passed at nearly 86.

She began working at the store in 1949, helping her stepfather, Vincent "Pops" Malmstrom. 

Then college, a career teaching in Seattle, Washington, and raising two daughters took her away from the shop, but she returned in 1988 to help Pops and her mother Jean Malmstrom. She'd kept the store open ever since.

Fran DwightMichigan News’ owner, Dean Hauck, smiling at the counter.Hauck was such a driven force behind the Michigan News Agency that it was a shock to Downtown when a "Closed due to illness" sign, written on a paper bag, appeared on the door Feb. 8.

"A 'force' is a good word for it. There will never be anyone like her," daughter Margaret Hauck says.

Born in Seattle, now living in New Orleans, Margaret says, "intellectually I've always known, 'my mom had a store in Kalamazoo.' Not until she passed did I realize how connected she was, how connected the community was to her, how important she was to them, and they were to her."

Fran DwightPeople lined up down the block to pay their respect to Dean Hauck at Michigan News Agency on Friday, May 2, 2025.Daughter Sarah Smith, also born in Seattle, had lived in San Francisco and now lives in Lansing. In the late '80s she moved from Seattle to attend Kalamazoo College, and worked at the store with her mother in the late '80s.

"It's always interesting working for a parent," Sarah says. "I know that she ran the store wonderfully, and everybody loved her."

She continues, "Everybody felt her presence, so I'm really glad that people can be here to feel her presence one more time."

"Lucky to be alive."

"My mom was in Girl Scouts with her," author Bonnie Jo Campbell says. "That's how I first knew of her."

Fran DwightOne night at a Girl Scout camp, they were telling ghost stories, Campbell says. "Then Dean told a true story about what she'd been through. And apparently, that was way more terrifying than any ghost story that could have been told."

Hauck was born in the Philippines to an American family. In 1941, Japanese forces invaded, and put her, her mother, and sister in an internment camp. Her father went into the jungle to become a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. 

"One of her earliest memories is being told that she was going to be lined up and be shot with all the people in the camp," daughter Smith says. Luckily, the Americans landed before that could happen.

"She was lucky to be alive. She always lived her life like it was a gift, because she might not have had it," Smith says. 

Hauck learned to read in the camp. "She really felt like books created a safe place for her and a world for her to escape to, and she loved the idea of working in a bookstore." 

Fran DwightMargaret Hauck, Dean Hauck's daughter, says, "Not until she passed did I realize how connected she was, how connected the community was to her, how important she was to them, and they were to her."It's hard not to picture Hauck behind the register, but "she had a long life of other things other than the bookstore," Smith says. 

The family had "our little place on Smith Lake," near Berrien Springs, Smith says. Hauck also loved visiting her daughters in New Orleans and San Francisco. 

Smith's husband, Scott Smith, says of Hauck, "She is just a force of nature. I miss the hell out of her. She's always welcoming and caring, and she knew how she needed things to get done."

On shelves behind the register is what Hauck called her "computer system," cardboard drawers of notecards on every magazine, newspaper and paperback.

Fran DwightHundreds of people turned out to honor Dean Hauck and Michigan News Agency on May 2, 2025.She refused to change the way things had been done since Pops started in the '40s. She ran the store "with 3X5 cards," Judy Sarkozy of Sarkozy Bakery says. 

"She was tough," Sarkozy says. "Survived and maintained against huge odds, and knew what this place meant to the people in Kalamazoo." 

Champion of local writers

Deborah Ann Percy and Arnie Johnston, writers and long-time fixtures of WMU's English department (Johnston) and former principal at Maple Street Magnet Middle School for the Arts (Percy), note that Hauck "was a real advocate for local writers," Johnston says.

Fran DwightDeborah Percy, local playwright and writerThe store "is a center for the arts, it's a center for books. Dean was a champion of downtown. She was fierce. She championed the underdog, she championed the artist," Percy says.

Fran DwightArnie Johnston, local playwright, poet, and Professor Emeritus of WMU's English DepartmentHauck was a strong supporter of local writers, from national bestsellers like Campbell to self-published authors like, full disclosure, this writer. She always kept a prominent display of local authors at the front of the store. Michigan News was a rarity — a bookstore that would stock self-published local authors and not charge a commission. All profits went straight to the author. 

Trevon Hobson remembers being 8, getting windmill cookies with his grandmother at the store.

He later returned in 2023, book in hand — he'd self-published his memoir "Water from Cactus," and hoped she'd sell it.

Fran DwightSelf-published Kalamazoo author Trevon Hobson. "She would just tell me these crazy stories. She didn't bite her tongue. She was full of fire, all gas, no brakes."Hauck was not only willing to put it on the shelf, she also let him put up a poster for the book in the window.

He'd visit just to talk. "She would just tell me these crazy stories. She didn't bite her tongue. She was full of fire, all gas, no brakes!"

"I learned so much. We come from two different worlds, but yet we would have these meaningful conversations for hours and hours. I'm going to miss it, I really am. It's not going to be the same," Hobson says. 


"An unfortunate transformational change"

Rumors swirled among the crowd about what Michigan News might become. There were a lot of hopes that it could remain a bookstore or a cultural center of some sort. But there's no replacing Hauck.

Fran DwightMark Sahlgren and daughter Darcy Wilkin. I talked with them a little. "I worked here many years ago, in '94," Wilkin says. Sahlgren says he's been a customer since before Hauck.Losing the store and Hauck "is an unfortunate transformational change to the fabric of the community in Kalamazoo," Mayor David Anderson says. "Once again, you realize that it's in its loss that you recognize even how important it is."

Whenever Anderson visited, he "would get an earful on the opinion side, and an update on things occurring proximate to the business here," Anderson says.

Hauck had strong opinions on the state of downtown Kalamazoo — she called for Michigan Avenue to return to being a two-way street, for example. (Some at the remembrance suggested that the street be renamed the Dean Hauck Memorial Highway when finally rebuilt as two-way.)

Fran DwightThe memorial for Dean Hauck took place during Art Hop on May 2, 2025.She had eyes on the city every day, and talked to all who'd come into the shop. Having a community member tuned in like that is "a valuable thing," Anderson says.

"The biggest thing" was that her opinions were "not delivered with enmity, even though it might be very strongly worded," Anderson says. 

He adds, "It is something that we are losing, I think, is that capacity to share something with someone where you could feel like you have a different opinion about it, and yet you're still tied together.... this person-to-person interaction and these kinds of things is what makes community, community."


"This is Kalamazoo"

Some memories of Michigan News go way back. 

Sharon Ferraro, the City's Historic Preservation Coordinator, along with brother Lance Ferraro, shared memories of their non-Kalamazoo newspaper delivery gig in the mid-'60s, where they'd pick up Chicago, Detroit, and other out-of-town papers at the Michigan News on bikes as dawn broke. 

Fran DwightSharon Ferraro, with brother Lance Ferraro in the background. "She had an insatiable curiosity." Sharon says of Hauck. They became devoted customers, though, when Hauck was in charge, thanks to her tireless effort to special-order books, plus her wide-ranging knowledge and curiosity.

Sharon remembers how, during recent construction, the old original street bricks were uncovered in front of the store, "we had this long conversation about the history of paving in Kalamazoo," she says. "She had an insatiable curiosity." 

Linda Dunn, a lifelong resident born in 1948, has her earliest memories of Michigan News. 

Fran DwightLinda Dunn, whose earliest memories are of Michigan News. To see Hauck and the Michigan News Agency go, "takes so much away from our city. It removes a sense of history. Print media, books, the smell of it. The smell of paper. These things are like a"My father used to bring me in here. One of my earliest memories was getting in the car with the dog in the back seat. And we would hop down here, and we would get the newspaper every day," Dunn says. "He was a World War II vet, and his biggest thing was coming downtown to get a newspaper, to be part of his community.

"I'd always get a mint or some kind of treat, which was really something because we weren't allowed sugar in our house," she says with a laugh. 

Dunn became a frequent visitor of the shop in the past decades, visits that included long chats with Hauck.

Fran DwightMany browsed through the stacks of books still remaining in the store."This place means something to me, the sign means something to me. You see this," Dunn points to the large original sign, "this is Kalamazoo." To think of it all gone, she says with a catch in her voice, "takes so much away from our city. It removes a sense of history. Print media, books, the smell of it. The smell of paper. These things are like a family."

In Second Wave's last interview with Hauck, we wrote:

Hauck gets up every morning at 5 AM, opens at 7 AM, and "works every day until five at night because I believe in all of us." 

Does she ever think about retiring? 

"Nope. I think I have ten or 15 more years, and then I'll have to figure out what to do with it. Pass it on to somebody else."

When that subject comes up, she says she thinks of something Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander said: "Find something you love to do, and do it until the wheels fall off."

Fran DwightVisitors signed a guest book and included memories they had of Dean Hauck and Michigan News Agency.