So Friday was my last day at work nearly 40 years after arriving in Lakeport for the first time.
Well, actually, I had been in Lakeport once before I became the Lake County Record-Bee’s first sports editor way back in August of 1984. One day I loaded up my oldest brother and mom and in my 1965 Chevelle Malibu, my first car, and took them for a drive in the country. I somehow ended up in Lakeport after traveling over Highway 20 from Ukiah. I had never been on the Hopland Grade before that day and when I stopped to ask for directions at a gas station, the question being the quickest way to return to Sonoma County, a man told me, “Hopland Grade, Highway 175, and I hope you have good brakes.” I didn’t, but I made it home safely. I vowed never to take that road again.
Well, I’ve traveled it thousands of time since then as the Bee’s sports editor but also a full-time resident of Cloverdale most of my 40 years on the job.
A lot has changed since my very first day in 1984. Way back then, the Record-Bee covered a lot of Clear Lake High School sports with a smattering of Upper Lake and Kelseyville thrown in. My first editor, and my best, Ellen Leifeld, told me, “Cover all of the county’s teams.” It didn’t happen right away and it wasn’t easy because most of the county’s five high schools hadn’t worked with the Record-Bee before, didn’t know what I was all about, and were unsure about this new kid who was just months out of college.
Forty years later I end my run as sports editor having accomplished exactly what Leifeld told me to do, “Cover the county.” What the future holds for local sports coverage I do not know. A community paper that shuns community sports is not a community paper. If I want to read about the pros, I can use my cell phone or laptop and get everything I want online for free. If community media outlets don’t cover local teams, who will? The answer is no one will.
So much has changed during my 40 years it’s hard to remember everything and all the great people I’ve worked with for the last four decades. There was no online edition, no Facebook back then because there was no internet. The Record-Bee printed four days a week when I started work here although a Saturday edition following in the late 1980s.
The very nature of the business has changed, and I don’t just mean the technical side of things – we didn’t even have computers with hard drives when I started work here. Where once the Record-Bee was a family owned paper in the 1980s, it then was swallowed up by corporate giant Media News Group, then Digital One and now a hedge fund that doesn’t care about maintaining quality journalism. Budgets and staff have been slashed unmercifully since 2008. Where once the Record-Bee was one of the biggest employers in Lake County, nowadays its full-time staff in the editorial department numbers two souls. One of them was me, until Friday.
I’ve always loved covering high school sports and I was fortunate to have the guidance of many on my path to Lakeport, from my first days at the Healdsburg Tribune where editor Guy Kovner and reporter Jeff Dorsch were there to assist me, to my college days as a Press Democrat intern where Herb Dower, Bruce Meadows and Rich Rupprecht were a huge influence, and finally at the Bee when I’ve worked with some top-notch journalists who went far in the industry, such as my first editor Ellen Leifeld and her talented photographer husband Ron.
I’ve had some great managing editors and publishers – and some real bad ones as well. Leifeld, Mike Molligan, Elizabeth Larson and Mandy Feder Sawyer were gems. I’ve worked with some of the best news people too, including Jeremy Walsh, Walt Neary, Tammy Murga, Gary Tanner and Sue Stout. My two columnists, Terry Knight (outdoors) and John Berry (golf), have been with me from almost the start. While he never officially worked for the Record-Bee, ultra-talented freelance photographer Trett Bishop was another real gift from God. If I’ve missed some others, it wasn’t intentional. There are too many to count, too many to remember, too many to name, but I cherish the time I spent with all.
As sports editor I’ve covered some of the county’s greatest athletes and coaches. I retire with one of those coaches, Bill Foltmer, still going strong (301 career football victories). My first football season in Lake County was in 1984 while Bill arrived at Middletown 1985. I’ve covered the athletic careers of parents and their kids, but I won’t make it to the grandkids. I’ve enjoyed most of it and I leave with only a few real regrets.
I thought long and hard about how I would exit the Record-Bee one day if I had the opportunity to go out on my own terms, which is the case, and that can’t be said for many journalists nowadays in this vastly shrinking industry. I decided before the start of last season that this would be it. I poured everything I had into 2022-23 and I was extremely fortunate to cover some great teams my final year, with Clear Lake football and Upper Lake girls basketball being two of them.
Thanks to all of you who have shared you kind words with me the last couple of months as my career drew to a close. I will miss you, but it’s simply time for me to do something else with the time I have left. One of those things is starting a Lake County high school hall of fame. I look forward to working on that project with some other Lake County graybeards.
Goodbye.
