By Tracy Warner
The Wenatchee World
I have told this story so many times I can’t recall if I ever put it down here, but with the passing of our chairman Wilfred Woods Saturday, I feel compelled to describe the view from his employees.
It was my first day as an employee of The World, precisely 40 years ago on the 21st day of March. I had been told to arrive in the newsroom promptly at 7 a.m. to take up my duties. I got off the elevator, walked into the second floor at 14 N. Mission, and was greeted by the managing editor who had interviewed me two weeks before. “Can I help you?” he asked. Shocked, I mumbled, “Um, you a, you told me to come to work here.”
Oh, it’s you, said the managing editor. It was an inauspicious debut, until a man in a graying mustache grabbed me by the elbow. “Ho, ho. Let’s take the tour. Oh boy!” It was whispered in my ear that this welcoming man was the publisher Mr. Woods, known to all as Wilf, whose family had owned the newspaper since the first Roosevelt administration and, like any newspaper publisher, had the power of life and death over all he surveyed. I had worked here for five minutes and I was riding the elevator with the publisher to go look at the printing press.
To say this was in contrast to my previous employment is an understatement. At those places, the newspaper owner worked at corporate headquarters in some other state. Publishers were big wheels who spoke to reporters only when necessary and to 23-year-old new hires, never. I toured with Wilf in disbelief. He talked about his father, about Grand Coulee Dam, gave me the important literature and maps, which I still have. I thought, this is a different kind of place. The publisher is in the office, right there. You can hear him laughing, whistling and typing.
Some years later I was a last-minute fill-in assigned to cover the World Trail Hike, the annual group trek into the Cascades wilderness with the Courtney family outfitters of Stehekin. This required hiking, of course, photography for a week’s outing, and writing about the event upon our return. We singles were assigned tent-mates. They gave me to Wilf. Once again, I lay awake in disbelief. I am sleeping in a pup tent with the publisher. I was nervous, but he was casual and friendly and undemanding. He didn’t snore. He shaved every morning with a wind-up razor, and asked me to attempt some harmony during the campfire sing-alongs. He brought the songbooks. He hiked faster than me, too.
Wilf did not often step into day-to-day work issues. Department heads were in charge. Editors would give me a verbal thrashing when I deserved it. I don’t remember this incident specifically, temporary amnesia I think, but I am told there was a day I was very upset about a management directive, threw a quick tantrum, and kicked a potted plant in the newsroom. The next day the managing editor took me aside and said, Wilf saw you kick the plant. He said if you ever do that again, I have to fire you. I was very grateful for a second chance. I never kicked a plant again. Honest.
We once had a features editor, Barbara MacLean, who had a thirst for adventure. She approached Wilf with a rather crazy idea. She would send out inquiries to newspapers in Britain, close to The World’s size, and ask if anyone wanted to exchange jobs for six months or so. I don’t know of many publishers who would be willing to trade a top editor for a foreign stranger chosen at random, but Wilf didn’t blink. He understood. He had a thirst for adventure himself.
So the exchange was made. The young editor from England arrived to stay at Barbara’s place in Leavenworth. I was assigned to make sure she survived without freezing. We were married eventually, and we thanked Wilf. And we had a daughter, and home, and a job, and we thanked Wilf. And we still thank Wilf.
Tracy Warner’s is a columnist for The Wenatchee World.
