California dream will have to wait

Maybe next time.
That’s the inevitable conclusion after a period of several weeks of uncertainty in The Commercial Review’s newsroom.
Back in November, I thought it was time to relinquish the title of editor of the daily newspaper and pass the torch, so to speak, to Ray Cooney. Ray was more than up to the job, and I’d been in that position since 1977.
In other words, the change was overdue.
Now I can ratchet things down a bit, I thought. Now I can work just as much as I want to work. Pretty cool.
Then a funny thing happened: Samm Quinn, the daily paper’s city hall reporter, was hired away.
Suddenly, we were short-staffed.
County reporter Kelly Lynch stepped up and took on some police and city hall coverage, and I found myself spending Monday mornings with the Jay County Commissioners, filling Kelly’s usual spot.
Trouble was, Samm resigned just before the holidays. And that’s a terrible time to go looking for a new employee. The job search quickly spread into January, then into February.
Then another not-so-funny thing happened: Kelly decided she needed to be closer to family and her circle of friends in Fort Wayne and was offered a job there.
Now we were not just one person down, we were short by two.
And I had a real problem.
About 20 years ago, my relationship with an old friend with The Associated Press led to an invitation to serve as a judge for the California Newspaper Publishers Association Better Newspaper Contest. I’ve lost track of when that started, but it has continued intermittently for a couple of decades.
Have I done it seven times? Or 10? Or more? Who knows?
But it’s a fun gig and hard work at the same time. A panel of about eight to 10 editors reviews finalists in dozens of categories in several different circulation groups, decides on the winners, then writes comments for each of the finalist entries.
If that sounds like grading papers, that’s because it’s exactly like grading papers.
But there’s something that makes the gig worth doing.
The CNPA flies the judges out to San Francisco, then picks up the tab for the hotel and dinner each night. What could be better than that?
So when I was asked to judge the contest again this year, I immediately said yes. More than that, I decided Connie and I should extend the trip by renting a car after the judging was complete, then drive the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco down to Los Angeles. We would visit some wineries and art galleries, then have a few days with our friend Andy Lippman, the same old AP buddy who had hooked me up with the contest gig. We’d also touch base with a couple of my high school classmates, Vickie Renbarger in San Francisco and Gayle Williams in Pasadena.
Sounds great. What could possibly go wrong?
What went wrong, of course, is that a couple of reporters left. And at a small newspaper, losing a couple of reporters is like having a couple of tires go flat on the family car.
That’s when it’s time to go to Plan B. And at the daily newspaper’s newsroom, I am Plan B, the one who steps in to make sure things get done and Ray doesn’t have a nervous breakdown.
So while we have been searching diligently for good, competent replacements for Samm and Kelly, the time inevitably came when it was necessary to bail out on my California gig.
It was painful but necessary. It was a disappointment but not a tragedy.
And, what the heck, there is always next year.