GAYLORD — “The composition manager told me I didn’t have what it takes to work in the newsroom,” said Chris Grosser, whose last day as editor of the Gaylord Herald Times will be June 13.

“I intended to prove him wrong.”

Readers’ opinions of stories will vary, but if professional awards are any indication, the judges’ verdict would seem to be that she has proved her point.

On top of numerous personal and group awards, the Gaylord Herald Times won 2007 Newspaper of the Year honors from the Suburban Newspaper Association.

Grosser joined the Herald Times composition department in 1973 after getting her foot in the door at age 16 by writing girls basketball stories, convincing former publisher Jim Grisso she deserved a shot.

In the intervening years she’s turned her critical news eye on city councils and school boards, township and county government, and plenty of feature stories and columns.

“I think a lot of people out there cast us as cold-hearted vultures waiting for something bad to happen,” she observed. That’s not the case, she promised. In fact, years such as 2001 offer a different view, as tragic stories came around on their own with an explosion and two fires at then-Georgia Pacific which injured nine; the death of two people at the Old Depot in Johannesburg as Cynthia Kundrat drove her car into the front of the restaurant; and the reeling effects of September 11. While such stories often allow a newsroom to showcase its skill, she said, they also are a challenge in a community where reporters and editors often know those involved. It was often the case afterward, Grosser shared, that families would thank her for the paper’s efforts to portray a loved one.

Her teary eyes reflect her sensitivity to the community she’ covered.

It’s a community she left for eight years to live in Oklahoma during the 1980s but returned to, still with a passion for writing.

“When I came back, there were lots more people I didn’t know,” she shared. “There are always more people” moving in to become newsmakers. That fact, and a changing sense nationally of the role of news reporters generally, have swamped the industry in change, she observed.

“As time goes by, people have looked to us to be more, because of the saturation of news from other sources,” said Grosser, whose newsroom regularly breaks stories online and sends out advance text message alerts.

Then she added, “Community news is community news. It’s what impacts me — the reader — and that’s why it’s such a challenge and so rewarding.”

Grosser will remain in Gaylord to devote herself full time to writing. She has been working on several books.

General Manager Marilyn Kaczanowski announced Online Media Manager Peter Comings will take the editor’s chair while maintaining his online responsibilities. A story about his new position will appear in Wednesday’s Herald Times.

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