Farewell

Donald Watson

August 19 will be my last day at The Star News. I had hoped to quietly leave, but with Brian Wilson on vacation, it was “suggested” I write a column reflecting on nearly 30 years with the paper.

Looking back, my most striking memory is how much newspapers have changed. When I first started at the paper, we were doing cut and paste to put the paper together. Every column of type, every photograph, every piece of artwork was cut out by hand using an X-Acto knife and waxed to stick down on the layout sheet. The layout sheets then had to be physically taken down to the printing plant in Abbotsford where a camera photographed them on a large negative. The negatives were then used to burn the image onto the printing plates for the press. We still do cutting and pasting today, but it’s done electronically on the computer. We are able to create page layouts and designs that were unimagined just 15 or 20 years ago. The finished pages are sent electronically down to the printing plant where the plate burner uses a laser to etch the page onto the printing plate. With an online subscription, you can be reading The Star News before the paper is even printed.

In the “old days,” we would take a photograph, develop the film and make a print of the photo, a process that took an hour. Today we can take a photo, download into the computer, adjust the photo and print it out in a matter of minutes. The concept of digital photography was just being developed when I started working at The Star News.

Along with technology comes more problems, witness the breakdown several weeks ago that delayed the printing of the paper. Overall, the advances in technology has made our job faster and more efficient, which is what we all strive for in the news business. It will be interesting to see what the next 30 years brings to the newspaper industry.

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I had been thinking about retiring for several years. What finally made me decide it was time to leave was when I realized co-workers who started working at the paper in their early 20s are now in their 40s. (It seems like it was just yesterday they started working at the newspaper.) Other co-workers have replaced the photos of their children on their desks with photos of their grandchildren. I remember chipping in to buy baby shower gifts for people who are now going to college. Yup, it’s definitely time to leave.

Some of my co-workers have asked what I plan on doing after I retire and have offered a number of suggestions, most of which involve me cooking or baking something several times a week and bringing it to The Star News office. I have a stack about 10 inches high of information I have collected on various state parks and parks in other parts of the country that I would like to visit. I don’t know if I will get to the bottom of that stack, but I plan on having fun trying.

To Brian, Matt, Ginna, Shawna, Kelly, Tresa, Todd, Sarah, Lydia, Megan, Julia and Joanne — I have enjoyed working with you. You are like my second family and I will truly miss all of you. To Carol and Kris, thank you. I know it’s a cliché, but the past 30 years have been an experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I will always cherish them.

Farewell everyone.