The publisher — I no longer remember his name and I am sure he no longer remembers mine — handed me a long piece of yellow paper covered with purple typing. All the letters were capitalized and the paper was long enough to reach the floor. The very familiar looking canary newsprint had just been torn from the noisy squat charcoal gray United Press International wire machine sitting in the corner of the front office.

Way before the advent of the Internet, print media, including newspapers, and broadcast media, such as television and radio stations, got their worldwide news and breaking headlines from various national and international teletype wire services — Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters and other smaller news wires such as the New York Times.

The news of the world came into the Nebraska newspaper office through the UPI wire. It was printed out in purple ink on yellow paper. The Associated Press used white paper with black ink.

The newswire machines were loud inventions. There was always a constant din, but with a distinctive clatter, punctuated by an occasional ding of a bell, as the mechanically typing keys noisily lumbered across the page as they individually pecked at the scrolling paper. The Douglas County Gazette only had one wire service — one newswire machine was enough. Larger publications, such as the Omaha World Herald, would have many newswire machines and because of the increased noise level, they were usually housed in their own soundproofed room to cut down on noise pollution in the newsroom. But they could always be heard clunking and dinging away in the background.

Bells were an important way of communicating the urgency of a breaking story. The newswire's dinging bell was as vital in the newsroom as ringing bells are in the convent or the sounding of bells are on a ship.

The more the newswire bell dinged, the more important the breaking news was. Three bells and the moving story was completed. Four bells indicated an urgent. Five bells meant Bulletin. Ten bells for UPI (12 for AP) meant something earth shattering had just happened. FLASH! Ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... ding ... FLASH!

The only time I remember a FLASH! and 10 bells sounding, I was working at a radio station in central Florida — Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. Some older radiomen remembered hearing the Kennedy assassination FLASH! in November 1963.

My eyes turned to the long trailing yellow paper with purple lettering. I was stunned into silence as the words swam off the page. Taking a deep breath, I started to cry, tears rolling down my cheeks.

The publisher looked at me. Why was I crying? What was so earth shattering? There were no UPI bells ringing, just the occasional ding or ding-ding.

I told him that my church — The Episcopal Church — had just died. It was snakebit.

The story he handed me was the first draft of the news coming out of Philadelphia. Eleven women were "irregularly" ordained as Episcopal priests — the first unofficial women priests. It wasn't earth shattering news, but it was soul shattering news.

I knew at that moment, a chasm had been crossed that could not be recrossed and I was reading about it moments after it happened. As a journalist, I imagined I would be reporting about it sometime in the future. When, where, how or why, I didn't know.

My immediate assignments were laid out for me. I was to cover the Douglas County Fair with the special guest that year being Rochester, the gravelly-voiced valet on the Jack Benny Program and then do a feature on Ak-Sar-Ben, the race track in Omaha.

At the time, my military husband was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue. We lived across the street from a Baptist church in Papillion. But there was no Episcopal church in that suburb so I settled in at St. Barnabas in Omaha.

Offutt was a good base to be an Air Force wife. I enjoyed it, in part, because it had family meaning for me. I had a favorite uncle who was once stationed there when it was still a US Army cavalry post complete with horses. He used to tell me stories. In the mid-1970s Offutt's equestrian roots were still discernible.

I was still in Omaha when the powerful F4 tornado rumbled though the next spring. I will never forget the sky turning yellow and the hail pelting everything in sight. Even now when I see the heavens turn lemon, I know what could be dropping from the clouds.

I was at St. Barnabas during the time Fr. James Brice Clark was their beloved rector. St. Barnabas, a beautiful century old English Herefordshire-style church situated on the corner of 40th and Davenport streets, has disentangled from the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska and has safely landed in the Ordinariate, but not without a battle over buildings with the Episcopal bishop.

There is now an Episcopal church in Papillion — St. Martha's, one of two off-base Episcopal parishes serving Offutt's military families without the servicemen having to drive into Omaha itself. The other church close by is Holy Spirit in Bellevue.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori visited St. Martha's in the spring of 2010. The Omaha World-Herald quoted her as saying that "The Episcopal Church invites questioning, varied viewpoints and diversity in leadership and lifestyle."

Much has changed in 40 years since I stood in that newspaper office in disbelief as I read the stories churning out of the UPI wire machine from Philadelphia. I was right; the church was snakebit and has been slowly dying ever since from the spiritually poisonous venom that was introduced on that fateful day.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline