Of buyouts and old friends

June 18th, 2008 at 05:30pm Linda Grist Cunningham

On June 20, when the last of our six newsroom buyouts leaves the News Tower, they will have taken with them 131 years of community and institutional memory. They will have taken with them, decades of knowing how to spell Hononegah and how to pronounce Sinnissippi.

Decades of knowing whether we were writing about NIC-10 or NIC-9 and which teams were which. Decades of knowing what Hastec was. Of knowing at whom Silverman threw balled up newspapers. Decades of nodding knowingly and grinning big when someone mentioned Ramhoff, Lenahan, and, of course, Beeg. Decades of knowing how much the deseg lawsuit cost and which school board members were Elvira and the three stooges. These are the journalists who saw Joe Lamb take off his leg and toss it on the desk top to get a new reporter’s attention.

These six are the journalists whose careers in the News Tower helped shape who we are and what we will become. And, as they choose to leave us, I am grateful for their gifts.

There are six, and among them, are six very different reasons for deciding to take the buyout. In most cases, the decision was a joyful one: Give me the cash so I can go do what I’ve always wanted to do. For these men and women, the path to a new life or a new career could be smoothed with financial support they didn’t expect. In other cases, the decision was colored with frustration and disappointment, indeed, perhaps anger. I would be disingenuous and dishonest to pretend otherwise. It would be a decision tinged with “time to get out while the getting’ out’s good.”

But in all cases these journalists struggled with the decision to remove the comma after their names. You know that comma, the one on your business card that says what you do? That comma also becomes who we are, and when it is no longer there, the world looks and feels a lot different. No one removes that comma easily, whether by choice or not. I know. I have been there.

Today, I celebrate the six who have made that decision: Geri Nikolai, 22 years at the Register Star; Judy Emerson, 23 years; Edie Webster, 18 years; Vicki Olson, 26 years; Rob Baxter, 10 years; and, Reed Schreck, 32 years – and most of them spent praying (with Geri) that Brett Favre would NOT retire …..

We will be not less, but different, when these friends and co-workers are gone. It will take months not to hear their voices or wonder if they are coming in. It will take longer still for us to stop saying, “well, if she – or he – were here, they’d be able to do this for us.” Each will, however, pass into News Tower legend.

About them will be told tales, growing ever more colorful with each telling. And, each journalist in this room today, will be part of that amazing newsroom continuum that opens every bar-stool conversation with something like this: “Remember, oh what WAS her name? You know, the one who …..” And, we’ll be able to fill in the name ….

Oh, that was Judy, or Geri, or Edie, or Reed, or Rob or Vicki… We will remember and because we remember, they will be with us always – well, except, when we need some work done. Godspeed.

(The Rockford Register Star offered voluntary buyouts and accepted about 20 building-wide. When it announced the buyouts, we said we needed about 20 in order to reach our goal of being at 94 percent of 2007 payroll expense. We expect to update the story over the next few weeks. Portions of this post were originally shared at a newsroom staff meeting on June 5.)

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