Everyone knows of Helen Keller, the famous author and lecturer who was blind and deaf at the age of 19 months. She once said:

“The most beautiful things in life cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”*

That’s how I’ve embraced this newspaper for the past 40 years. I put heart and soul into my job. I’ve been blessed because I love what I do. Not everyone can say that.

Of the 14,499 days (this Dec. 31) I will have served as the head guy at the HT, the vast majority were good, but some not so hot. It’s not a perfect world, folks.

I’ve taken great pride in my job and your newspaper all these years. And I am extremely proud to say I’m from Gaylord. I wouldn’t trade this town for any place in the world.

Being employed as a small-town newspaper publisher can be a soul-searching responsibility if you’re like me: a passionate journalist first and businessman second. The “print it like it is” philosophy, not afraid to write about the controversial and sensitive public issues in your town, can have its repercussions.

We’ve been threatened with boycotts from advertisers and readers, but we never caved in under the pressure.

Our staff spends a great deal of time analyzing highly sensitive situations, how to handle them, in many cases whether to pursue the story at all. We are human, and we do care.

The late Harold Elgas, highly-respected president of Gaylord State Bank (now Fifth Third Bank) and tremendous business leader who played the leading role in putting Gaylord on the map in the ’60s and ’70s, once told me that three of the most difficult jobs in a small community are those of school superintendent, bank president and newspaper publisher.

At that time, Gaylord School Supt. Tom Gill (another person I admire and respect), Harold and I held down those positions in Gaylord. Harold was right: You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Covering the news in a small town is difficult because on a regular basis you see and talk to the people you write about. Many are your friends and neighbors. Before I came to Gaylord, I worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and was responsible for working on investigative stories in northwest Ohio, a big area. I hardly ever saw the people I wrote about after my stories were published.

Accusations of favoritism have been cast at me more than once.

A prime opportunity is there for some right now involving the criminal investigations and forensic audits surrounding the Gaylord Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and its former executive director Sherrie Burns Schuster.

It’s a well-known fact some of the people connected to the DDA in one capacity or another are my personal friends. In fact, Bob McNamara Sr. was the first friend I made when I arrived in Gaylord in 1968. He moved here a month before I did.

One of the reasons this man is such a great friend is because he respects my job, and we don’t let it stand in the way of our friendship. Regarding the DDA issue, we agreed we had to deal with this on a professional level, not allowing our friendship to interfere.

I’ve learned to know who are my real friends are over the years, and Mac is definitely on the list. As a long-time community servant and DDA chairman the past 13 years, I know he wants to get to the bottom of the DDA fiasco as soon as possible.

Having close friends and being active in the community are two of the possible conflicts of interest a news-driven, small-town publisher like me runs into.

On the other hand, my job has given me much gratification from the many untold ways the Herald Times has supported and helped our community throughout the years. Besides being a strong voice in print, we’ve had a standing commitment to support local organizations and causes.

As a big Gaylord booster personally, I have done my best to be involved in as many organizations and activities as possible. That responsibility is a natural fit for a small-town newspaper publisher, although I’ve had to be cautious regarding my newsman role vs. confidentiality while serving on various boards.

I will always have a special place in my memory bank for der Buergermeister. Twenty-six years ago, I came up with an idea: let’s honor a person annually as the Otsego County “Citizen of the Year,” thus — der Buergermeister. For the past 26 years, the Herald Times has selected a person based on outstanding community service performed in many ways. Der Buergermeister is also honored as “Honorary Mayor of Gaylord” during Alpenfest.

The list is impressive. Matter of fact, Harold (1981), Tom (1982) and Mac (1994) are Buergermeisters.

I never experienced any greater pleasure than paying the 26 Buergermeisters an unexpected visit with other staff members and surprising them with the big announcement. Even though word of the selection each year was known by family and had hit the streets of Gaylord, der Buergermeister had no clue until our surprise visit.

I wish I had videos of every one of those special moments. If you could have seen the look on their faces. Priceless. Because of their years of hard work as community leaders, this honor meant a lot to them. Presenting it has meant a great deal to me, also.

That experience and hundreds of others are what have made my 40 years in this chair very rewarding and memorable.

Last, but not least, I would have to publish a special edition to talk about the great staff members I’ve worked with. All I can say is I’ve been real lucky to have so many loyal, dependable and skilled employees.

All the great memories. Tens of thousands of stories, photos, ads, deadlines, and some staff parties along the way. Count the awards for journalistic excellence won by the HT — almost 500 on the state and national level since 1968, including best newspaper honors in Michigan and the nation.

If I do say so myself, we put out a pretty darn good newspaper.

Staff, wherever you are:

Take a bow.

(Next week: Friends and memories.)

(* From the Internet.)

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