Memories from a career at the Deseret News

Last Friday I put my stamp on Page 1 of the Deseret News for the last time as I head into retirement. I'm ending nearly a half-century of association with the newspaper that began in 1962 when I started delivering the paper in Sugar House. That was the year of the Cuban missile crisis and the last time Deseret News carriers hawked the newspaper in Salt Lake neighborhoods, shouting "Kennedy blockades Cuba."

In 1967, I won a sports writing contest sponsored by the paper and was fortunate to begin working as a wire room attendant/copy courier when the editorial offices were split between Regent Street and Richards Street. Within a year, the News consolidated its offices on Regent Street. Three decades later we relocated briefly under a parking garage while the new building was being built, and now we've taken up residence at the Triad Center. Except for a four-year absence for military service, I've been employed at the News and mostly assigned to editing its news pages for five decades.

It's been an exciting career filled with memorable events and even more memorable people. I'll never forget the day Ed Asner came to town to address the Utah Society of Professional Journalists and stopped by our offices. I got to make this introduction: "Lou Grant, I'd like you to meet Lou Bate, our city editor." The two could have been brothers. They had the same build, same white hair and showed the same gruffness to their staffs that Asner portrayed on his "Lou Grant" show.

I've written dozens of stories, thousands of headlines, edited a like amount of stories, written hundreds of photo captions, corrected and edited graphics, charts and lists. I've laid out hundreds of pages, designed numerous special sections, supervised and worked with dozens of outstanding journalists and, yes, made my share of errors. But I've helped present the news to a core of Deseret News readers, who every day look to us for guidance, information and entertainment.

My harshest critic, my father, often calls me in the morning and asks, "What?s so important about this story?" Then asks if I've solved a certain clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle. It's been the best job in the world. What other profession pays you to read the newspaper and watch television? In many professions, you have to know a lot about your specialty. Journalists need to know a lot about A LOT of things — even subjects we care very little about. When playing Trivial Pursuit, I know I want to be paired with another journalist — or better still, a librarian.