At the beginning of this summer I used this column to introduce you to some of the new people here in the PRESS office in Mapleton. And boy did I ever catch heck for it. Not from the new publishers or any of the new staffers, but from the old guard."What about us, huh, Ted?" One asked, "What are we? Chopped-liver?"
Okay, okay, even though I'm sure that some readers are ready for something light and funny, like cute things my kids have said or done. In the "Sex, Politics, and Religion" vein, I haven't written anything too spiritual in a while, and Lord knows there's plenty going on in politics.
That's alright, this is a subject that is close to my heart anyway. I consider myself insanely lucky to get to work here this summer and as I've said before, I'd just about give a limb to get the new publishers Mark Rhoades and Brad Swenson to let me work here every summer from now on. But it's one thing to get to do something you love, but to get to do it with people you enjoy and care about is even better.
Here are just a handful of the people who's names appear in the staff box on page two every week:
I don't know who's been here the longest, but I know who the core is, Ann Collins. Ann is our office manager who sits in the reception area up front.
If I'm not mistaken, she started working for Mike and Barb Lyon back when she was still in high school. Consequently, she knows these three newspapers inside out. Julie Haman, the new reporter for the PRESS and I joke that she's like Radar O'Rielly on the TV show MASH. If you need to know where something is, how something's done, or what's going on, you just need to ask Ann. Unfortunately for her, most of Western Iowa knows this about her.
People are constantly calling or stopping in and asking her for phone numbers, directions, on office hours- not ours, some other businesses'. Like a bartender, she also has to listen to everybody's problems and complaints. Sometimes about the paper or their ad or subscription, but more often than not, just about the weather or life in general, or city hall.
This summer I've been at the "ad desk" with Carol Cowsert. This suits me fine because Carol is who I usually get help with the computer from. She's also who I always E-mail my column to on Fridays during the school year. She's originally from Colorado and she tends to agree with me politically, so I like to imagine her as some kind of hippie flower child when she was a kid. Unlike me, she's quiet, pleasant, amiable and polite- so maybe the hippy thing is way off.
She's just about as hard a worker as you'll find. She works up all the ads, on top of building the Budget Booster, our ads for the Rocket, Greensaver, and Today's Action, and her share of Mapleton PRESS (and this page when I'm not here). She's the least likely to break for coffee and the last to leave for lunch. I don't know where we'd be without her.
There are some that we only get to see once a week like Elaine Teut, our Schleswig correspondent, whom I always call Evelen or Elaine or any other name. Former owner and financial officer Barb Lyon, was coming in to paste-up the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper before I came. We still get to see her at lunch on Mondays or Tuesdays at Piccadilly Circus where we run into lots of other regulars. And of course Nancy Hanson, and Sheryl Bruhn and the rest of the Tuesday crew who all stuff, fold, sort, stack, tie and ship your papers every Tuesday; Howard Kruse, Delores Gosch and Molly Tullis.
Then there's Cathy Hanson, she and Nancy are sisters. They still have the same last name because they married brothers. Cathy's a hoot. She's like a great aunt or everybody's grandma or something. Maybe I just think that because she has so many stories about her grand kids.
At least once a week she bakes treats that she brings in for break
time. She used to do the print the T-shirts for the "Ink Spot," before
it was bought and moved to Castana. Cathy does lots of typing and
picture taking, but I need her proofreading skills most of all since
I\'m such an abysmal speller.
Carol prefers to have it quiet when she works, but on days she\'s not
here Michelle Kane plays Country radio for me. Michelle takes
pictures, does write-ups and builds most of the PRESS and helps with
the Booster and other papers. She and I both love spicy food. She
cans her own salsa, and does a lot of gardening, but we\'re told that
the billion cats that live on her farm have wrecked all her cucumbers
this year.
We don't always realize how fortunate we are in such small towns to have such superior newspapers, and these folks are much of the reason why.
There. Is this good enough for ya, Michelle?
At least once a week she bakes treats that she brings in for break time. She used to do the print the T-shirts for the "Ink Spot," before it was bought and moved to Castana. Cathy does lots of typing and picture taking, but I need her proofreading skills most of all since I'm such an abysmal speller.
Carol prefers to have it quiet when she works, but on days she's not here Michelle Kane plays Country radio for me. Michelle takes pictures, does write-ups and builds most of the PRESS and helps with the Booster and other papers. She and I both love spicy food. She cans her own salsa, and does a lot of gardening, but we're told that the billion cats that live on her farm have wrecked all her cucumbers this year.
We don't always realize how fortunate we are in such small towns to have such superior newspapers, and these folks are much of the reason why.
There. Is this good enough for ya, Michelle?
No comments:
Post a Comment