About a year after I moved away from Springfield to a new job in Kansas City, a columnist friend at another newspaper gave me a call.
He was surveying expatriate Springfieldians about what we missed most about our old hometown.
I rattled off a long list of friends.
Unacceptable, he said. Nobody knows those people. We’re looking for places, events, cultural icons. You know, stuff others would recognize.
To placate my pal, I mentioned the Ozark Empire Fair, cashew chicken and Ned Reynolds. I quickly added that for one to truly appreciate Ned Reynolds, one must move far away from Springfield.
When my quote appeared in print, some thought I was making a backhanded compliment to His Nitwittedness. I use this space now to assure everyone, especially Ned, that was not my intention. (Note to Ned: Really do miss you, man! Long may your eyebrows wave!)
After 14 years of living elsewhere, the list of all that I miss about Springfield wouldn’t begin to fit on this page. Lucky for me, work assignments and trips home to visit family and friends around the Ozarks have spared me a total disconnect.
Fortunately, I haven’t had to miss SBJ. Thanks to an annual Christmas gift from a dear friend, a subscription has followed me since I fled town in 1991.
I do miss the people of SBJ. Again, space here won’t allow a full listing of names, but a glance at the masthead shows four from the past still present.
Joe McAdoo’s Rusty Saber remains sharp as a laser.
Jim Wunderle, one of the funniest humans I’ll ever know, still spends a fair amount of his life in the dark (of movie theaters).
Dorothy Gardner – Love ya, Dorothy! – now holds the highfalutin title of vice president-finance, but as a practical matter I know she continues admirably in her true role as surrogate mother to SBJ staff.
Last but not least, Dianne Elizabeth. Judging from pictures I’ve seen in these pages over the years (in most of which she’s handing out awards to other business folk), Dianne must surely be sipping the same concoction that kept Dick Clark looking like a teenager for so long.
Dianne is my lifetime nominee for the Little Engine That Could Award.
Having worked in, around, with, and occasionally in spite of the news business for almost 25 years now, I can assure those of you in other pursuits that weekly newspaper publishing is not a game for the fainthearted.
It takes guts, savvy and a sheer will of determination just to survive, let alone thrive, as SBJ has.
The unseen business of a business like SBJ isn’t always pretty. In my time as editor, it was sometimes a real struggle to ensure that the weekly miracle would occur. Staff resources were thin, as one would expect of any fledgling publication. Second-hand production equipment that I am sure pre-dated dinosaurs was seemingly held together, as my dad might have said, by “spit, prayer and baling wire.”
But we never missed an issue, nor has any successive staff. With Dianne’s hand at the throttle, the Little Engine That Could has kept right on rolling.
Plenty is different at SBJ today, as is true of Springfield. The publication has a markedly improved look, with top-notch content (and top-notch talent producing it). Today’s staff enjoys space and equipment that hardly compare with what I knew.
I only wish today’s staff could have the same wise counsel that I always found behind the counter at Gailey’s Drug Store. I would often wander across the street from 209 E. Walnut to consult the late philosopher-pharmacist, Joe Gailey.
Always, Joe would listen. More than once, after I’d babble about concerns that would later prove meaningless, Joe would furrow his brow, shake his head, and say, “Ahhhh … you got a good thing going. I wouldn’t fool with it.”
Dianne and crew, I pass that to you. You have a great thing going.
Don’t you dare fool with it.
Chris Whitley worked for newspapers in Springfield for 10 years and served as editor of SBJ from 1987 to 1989. From 1991 to 2002, he was based in Kansas City as press spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In 2003, after one year as director of media relations for a Kansas City hospital chain, he moved to Jefferson City, where he currently serves as associate director of the Missouri Department of Social Services. His heart and family and many of his friends remain in the Ozarks.
