50 Years Ago
Today’s edition is Wednesday, July 10, 2024. That’s significant to me because I started working for this company 50 years ago this week, in 1974.
I can remember it like it was yesterday. I had graduated from Roanoke College in May and went back home to Pennsylvania to try and find a job. I was working at the ceramic tile factory in Lansdale, PA, where my mother had worked for years when I got a call from Ray Robinson in Salem.
Ray was the owner of the Salem Times-Register and New Castle Record and his part-time sports editor, Rick Harvey, had resigned. I had been the sports editor of the Roanoke College newspaper, the Brackety-Ack, which was printed on the Salem Times-Register press. Apparently Ray had been reading my stories and liked them, so he reached out to see if I’d like to return to Salem and replace Rick.
I had decided about a month before graduation I’d like to pursue journalism. I majored in Business Administration because I thought it was the most well-round field, but in addition to being Sports Editor for the RC paper I also worked for the Sports Information Department, writing stories for the basketball program and helping the late Ray Brown, and I was also the head stat me for the Maroon hoops team. So, it hit me I might want to do this for a living.
I had applied for a job at the Allentown Morning Call, but with no real newspaper experience I had little shot of getting that job. So, rather than sweat in that tile factory for an uncertain length of time I decided to take Ray up on the offer.
My dad and I loaded up my uncle Bill’s truck with any furniture we could find and drove to Virginia. We took a room at the old Regina Motor Lodge on West Main Street in Salem and looked through the paper for possible apartments. We found a place on Craig Avenue that’s still there and I soon had a one bedroom apartment about a mile away from the Roanoke College campus I had just left.
I realized right away I wasn’t going to get rich doing this, at least not in a financial sense. My salary was $40 a week plus mileage and I worked from home, which was now my one bedroom apartment. To “supplement” my income I got a job at the Damon Company machine shop, which was then located on Tennessee Street in Salem in the building where B&B Fastners now operates. I came home every day smelling like lubricant oil and soon my ’63 Chevy Impala took on the same aroma.
I did stories for the Salem Times-Register and New Castle Record. After a year or so I moved into a two-bedroom apartment and took in a friend from college to share the expenses, Denton Willard. He would get a job coaching the Craig County basketball team for one season and future Craig hoops coach John Looney was on the team. I got to know John well as he visited our place from time to time and I also made some great friends in Craig County when they still played basketball in the old high school gym/cafeteria and baseball at the Fairgrounds.
Speaking of the Fairgrounds, one of my first experiences with New Castle was when I attended the fair when I was at Roanoke College. Back in the ‘70s the New Castle Fair was famous in the area for its “hoochie cooch” show. I was surprised to find cars backed up on Route 311 waiting to pull into the fair, and it was an experience I’ll never forget. That tent show wouldn’t fly in 2024.
As mentioned, my first edition was 50 years ago today. After introducing myself I wrote a column about Dave Schultz, who had played for the Salem Rebels ice hockey team and was a key member of the ’76 Philadelphia Flyers, who had just won the Stanley Cup. I also had a story about the Salem Pirates and the Carolina League All-Stars that week, and a story about how a friend of mine from college, Jay Piccola, would be participating in a try-out camp for the New Orleans Jazz. The Jazz had drafted Piccola in the eighth round of the NBA draft on a tip from Tulane University coach Charlie Moir. Charlie had recruited Jay to Roanoke College, won a national championship in 1972, then took the Green Wave job after Piccola’s junior year. As you may know he eventually wound up coaching Virginia Tech and his son, Page, coached for many years at RC.
By September one of our news writers, the late Pat Hooker, had decided to leave and I was hired full-time to do sports and news, enabling me to quit the Damon Company. I enjoyed the sports much more and eventually worked my way into doing just that. In years to come our company purchased the Vinton Messenger and Fincastle Herald and I did the sports for the Salem, New Castle, Vinton and Fincastle papers, as I do today.
It doesn’t seem like 50 years. I’ve made many friends over the years and have totally enjoyed bringing sports stories to you in our papers on a weekly basis. I met my wife here at the paper and have truly enjoyed a wonderful life in this Shangri-La we call the Roanoke Valley.
Everyone should be so lucky.
