Tomorrow is my last day at The Monroe Times. These past two and a half years have been a great experience as the news editor of a small daily newspaper.
I've made friends in the communities we cover, and I know I've made some people upset. Such is life in the newspaper business.
I'm moving on to other journalism challenges as the editor of two weekly newspapers north of Madison. With my departure, I take not only a wealth of experience in my first full-time job at a daily, but a handful of memories, too.
Most of those memories didn't come in our small newsroom of 10 people or less, but outside of it, with co-workers who made me forget that the job was a constant challenge to give readers the best paper we could.
There were the trips to the only smoke-free bar in Monroe with sports staff Christopher Heimerman and John McNally after Friday nights of getting the Saturday paper out. Those dart games were competitive, and the music Christopher and John picked out was always top-notch.
Christopher, John and I also enjoyed a great night of bowling during another snowfall after a newsroom get-together.
There were the euchre showdowns with the photo editor and news editor of the Janesville Gazette at Bliss' annual editors conference in Stevens Point. Editor Jeff Rogers and I lost the first year, but we won the last two years. Jeff jokes that part of the interview process for the next news editor will be a game of euchre to make sure the Times can defend the title.
There was the night I got stranded in Monroe in February due to a snowstorm dumping 18 to 24 inches of white stuff in Green County. One member of our staff slept on the couch in the women's bathroom. Reporter Brian Gray and I didn't want to sleep on the floor, so we drove, carefully, to a local store to pick up some things. We then went to photographer Brenda Steurer's house. We played some pool downstairs and then crashed for the night. The next day, we got up, went to work and did it all over again.
It's always hard to leave a job that you enjoyed, especially when the people you worked with were professional, hard-working and a joy to be around.
To the Times newsroom, I say goodbye. Let's go bowling, play euchre or crash at Brenda's place sometime.
I've made friends in the communities we cover, and I know I've made some people upset. Such is life in the newspaper business.
I'm moving on to other journalism challenges as the editor of two weekly newspapers north of Madison. With my departure, I take not only a wealth of experience in my first full-time job at a daily, but a handful of memories, too.
Most of those memories didn't come in our small newsroom of 10 people or less, but outside of it, with co-workers who made me forget that the job was a constant challenge to give readers the best paper we could.
There were the trips to the only smoke-free bar in Monroe with sports staff Christopher Heimerman and John McNally after Friday nights of getting the Saturday paper out. Those dart games were competitive, and the music Christopher and John picked out was always top-notch.
Christopher, John and I also enjoyed a great night of bowling during another snowfall after a newsroom get-together.
There were the euchre showdowns with the photo editor and news editor of the Janesville Gazette at Bliss' annual editors conference in Stevens Point. Editor Jeff Rogers and I lost the first year, but we won the last two years. Jeff jokes that part of the interview process for the next news editor will be a game of euchre to make sure the Times can defend the title.
There was the night I got stranded in Monroe in February due to a snowstorm dumping 18 to 24 inches of white stuff in Green County. One member of our staff slept on the couch in the women's bathroom. Reporter Brian Gray and I didn't want to sleep on the floor, so we drove, carefully, to a local store to pick up some things. We then went to photographer Brenda Steurer's house. We played some pool downstairs and then crashed for the night. The next day, we got up, went to work and did it all over again.
It's always hard to leave a job that you enjoyed, especially when the people you worked with were professional, hard-working and a joy to be around.
To the Times newsroom, I say goodbye. Let's go bowling, play euchre or crash at Brenda's place sometime.
