Healdsburg Tribune 150th anniversary

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sesquicentennial souvenir edition ★★ celebrating 150 Years of community ★★ YOU READ IT FIRST IN THE HEALDSBURG TRIBUNE

The Healdsburg Tribune Special Edition JULY 30, 2015

HEALDSBURG, SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Today’s News TOMORROW’S HISTORY By Holly Hoods Curator, Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society

HEALDSBURG — I have learned local history from many sources in nineteen years working at the Healdsburg Museum. Old folks and old newspapers have taught me the most. Both can tell you a lot of important things if you pay attention. The 150th anniversary of the Healdsburg Tribune is a significant milestone in the life of our 158-year old community. I contend that having a local newspaper has helped build and strengthen this community. The Tribune deserves our continued support to help sustain our town. We should salute the owners and editors who have toiled (and still toil) to produce a newspaper over great challenges over the years. They all strived to put out the best newspaper they could. During some

1865 ~ 2015

Nothing But The News A HISTORY OF HEALDSBURG’S NEWSPAPERS FROM 1860 TO 1950 By Marie Djordjevich Former Curator, Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society newspaper: a paper that is printed and distributed usually daily or weekly and that contains news, articles of opinion, features and advertising (Webster's) When researching the past a good source of primary information comes from an area's newspapers. Many things about a community can be gleaned from the pages of journalistic endeavor: "The relative attention given to international, national and local news may provide clues to community concerns. Social and sports pages may provide insight into community interests and activities. A careful examination of advertisements offers many clues to readers' tastes, style of dress, entertainment preferences and other cultural characteristics. Classified ads may

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The Healdsburg Tribune Enterprise & Scimitar

Look inside for essays and memories from readers and writers of the tribune our 150th YEar, nuMBEr 31©

hEaldSBurg, California

From newcomer to publisher Our publisher’s story By rolliE atkinSon tribune Publisher

This is a true story about how I became publisher and owner of The Healdsburg Tribune. Just because I’ve told it many times, does not make it any more or less true. I could exaggerate, but the story does not require it. One day in late 1981, I walked into The Tribune office to sign up for a subscription. I was new in town, needed a job and wanted to read the Help Wanted ads every week. Before I left the office they found out I used to work in newspapers back East and I got a job interview and I was hired on the spot as the new sports editor. It turns out the Tribune’s young sports editor Brian Sumpter had just given notice so he could enroll at San Francisco State University to finish his college journalism degree. He was a great mentor and showed me everything I needed to know about the local sports desk in one weekend. Eventually I was promoted to editor, then general manager and, finally in 2000 I became publisher and owner. I still have my subscription but I never did have a use for the Help Wanted ads. I honestly was not looking for a newspaper job that day 33 years ago. I had been a reporter at my hometown daily newspaper in Frederick, Maryland for five years and had recently quit because of the constant grind and politics that See Publisher page 2

JulY 30, 2015

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Creating the first draft of history A note from the editor By raY hollEY Managing Editor

Putting together this sesquicentennial edition of the Healdsburg Tribune has been a singular pleasure. Made of equal parts history, appreciation, discovery and delight, I’ve learned a lot more about the newspaper I’ve come to love and call home. The generosity of the contributors to this issue is especially heartwarming. I picked almost two dozen names, almost at random, and asked people to write about what it meant to work here, to write columns for us, to see their names in print, or just to read the paper. Like most of the essays in this special edition, this one includes a little about my history with the newspaper and what it’s meant to me. A Sonoma County native, I lived here and there for 33 years before I moved to Healdsburg in 1988 to woo and win the heart of my wife, Lynn Woznicki. My Woz was in the paper a lot, as the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce. I was already a lifelong newspaper reader and it

became a regular ritual to pick up the Tribune, read about local events and politics and look for her name. “Woz Watch!” I would call out when I spotted her in the Trib. I had no idea that, 10 years later, I would become part of the paper. I spent that decade, as I had since I was 14, working here and there, switching jobs every few years when I got bored. When the Reeves family bought the newspaper in 1995, I met them and liked them In 1998, I wrote a long memo to Kathy Roth, the Reeves’ daughter, who was the publisher and workhorse of the family. My memo offered my assessment of how the paper was viewed by the community and included a twopage list of suggested improvements. A few weeks later, Kathy took me out to coffee, showed me the memo I wrote and challenged me to get involved. “These are good ideas,” she said, pointing at my list. “Which one do you want to do?” She called my bluff! Kathy was suggesting that I get off the sidelines, and when I said yes, my life began to pivot. I started See Editor page 14


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