Now I know how hard it was for Tom Brady and Michael Jordan to retire. At age 68, I’m still not ready. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Nobody tells you how to do it. And working has been such a fun and important part of my life.

It’s been a great ride. I’ve been hooked ever since I took something called journalism as a sophomore in high school to get out of Shakespeare. My early goals were to play professional basketball, but when I knew that wasn’t going to happen I thought it would be fun to cover sports instead.

It was when I went to Washington State University, graduating in 1979. But when I got my first job at a daily newspaper in La Grande, OR, I realized I’d have to work nights, and I wanted to be home with my family. So I switched to news when at South Lake Tahoe’s daily, and again I was hooked. While sports were fun, news was important.

I became the assistant city editor in Redding, CA and realized that was my place, assigning stories to reporters and helping them improve their craft. I was city editor in Port Angeles for 10 years raising my family and then assistant city editor at The Herald in Everett, the biggest paper I ever worked for, which was then 50,000 circulation. After that I became city editor in Olympia.

That’s where my career took a nosedive as I was laid off after three years when a new company bought the paper and gutted it. It was also the same time the P-I died in Seattle so there was a glut of unemployed journalists. I was too proud to go to the weekly system after 30 years in dailies. So I went to Pacific Lutheran and got my master’s in education and taught English and history, mostly in high schools, for three years.

I was able to coach football and baseball, which always had been a dream. I enjoyed most of the students, but there were a couple in every class that ruined it for me. Their parents wouldn’t do anything, and neither would the principals. So I humbled myself and took a job at the weeklies in Marysville and Arlington. I’m so glad I did. The six years there and the five here in Bainbridge Island were my most successful ever.

While I won some awards at dailies early in my career, and my papers won General Excellence twice each in Everett and Olympia, I really hadn’t done that much reporting and photography as I was mostly an editor. But on a weekly you do everything. My papers in Marysville and Bainbridge won numerous General Excellence awards. And, individually, over the 10 years, I’ve won 72 awards in 33 of the WNPA categories: from investigative reporting to sports news, from feature photography to editorials. So it’s great to end my career on a high note. What more could anyone ask for?

This career has been so much fun talking to people and writing their stories. I had hoped to save the world writing about problems in communities and watching them respond to fix them. Sadly, that has not happened as often as I would have liked. People are too wrapped up in their own worlds. I was so inspired by Woodward and Bernstein bringing down Nixon at the start of my career but my wins were much smaller and too few.

It’s too bad newspapers are dying. I’m so glad they lasted long enough for me to finish my career. The reason I ended up in Bainbridge was because the paper in Marysville died during COVID. That’s where I live and without the paper, no one knows what’s going on there.

Luckily, Bainbridge still supports its paper. There is so much misinformation in this country right now that I hope that people wake up and go back to supporting papers—even if just online. TV news is so biased I barely watch it. Even papers are getting bad, but they would return to their glory days, in my opinion, if the public demanded objectivity.

Years ago I wrote a sports column called Backseat Coach, kind of like a backseat driver sharing opinions after the fact. Now I get to be a media critic, since I’m no longer going to be part of it. I’m looking forward to that. Something needs to happen to get it back on track.

Thank you Sound Publishing, my co-workers and the people in Kitsap County for allowing me to be a part of this community. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure.

Career highlights

Serving on Washington Newspaper Publishers Association board for years, and as president in 2022.

Numerous Society of Professional Journalist daily newspaper awards for sports writing.

Olympian Employee of the Year in 2007.

Winning a national award for innovation as editor of the Waterfront Renaissance Project at The Herald in Everett.

Having the only local byline story for the 9-11 special edition of The Herald.

Appearing on two national TV news shows for coverage of crime stories in Marysville and Port Angeles.

Editor of a special section on the five tribes on the North Olympic Peninsula.

Covering campaign stops in Lake Tahoe for Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro and George Bush Sr. in Redding, CA

Interviewing sports legends like John Wooden and Gaylord Perry, along with TV personality Art Linkletter and politicians like Norm Dicks.

Mentoring reporters who have gone on to work at such prestigious publications as the Washington Post and Hartford Courant.

Covered national stories like the eruption of Mount St. Helens, Makah Tribe whale hunt, Oslo landslide and Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting.

Editor of the BI Review’s 100th anniversary special section.

Away from work a Kiwanis Club member, including two years as president; and Marysville chamber board member, including three years as events chairman. Hobbies include playing drums at church and in classic rock bands the past 35 years. Been married to wife, Debbie, for 22 1/2 years and between us we have five children and nine grandchildren. In retirement we, along with labradoodle Wazzu, plan to do a lot of traveling.