A final thank you

On my day off Saturday, I drove down to Anaconda to watch Ronan play softball. It was cold and wet the whole time except for about 15 minutes during warm ups for the championship game. Then during the game the wind started blowing and it was raining horizontally. It was terrible.

However, it was all worth it to watch the comeback that happened in the bottom of the seventh. You don’t see comebacks like that very often. The Ronan girls showed some real heart coming back from five down to win.

 I was so busy watching Jordyn Clairmont sprint for home that I didn’t even get my camera up. I did get some great celebration pictures though. Those emotion shots are the ones photographers live for.

That’s what I’m going to miss most about this job.

My last day at the Leader will be May 31. I can’t tell you how hard it’s going to be to not cover these schools. My time here has taught me so much, as have a number of community members, administrators, coaches, and kids. 

I’d like to thank a few people who have had my back along the way in my year and a half at the Leader. I know that in the long term, I wasn’t really here that long, but I did a lot in that time. I started part time in January of 2015 while finishing up college. I moved up here after graduation, then became the sports editor in September of 2015. Between November and February, I was doing that job plus laying out the Mineral Independent, one of our sister papers over in Superior. In February, I became the managing editor of the Leader. I couldn’t have survived all those things without the help of these people.

I’ll start with Athletic Directors. I wouldn’t be able to do nearly as much with the Ronan kids if it weren’t for Courtney Fisher. That woman has got it together. Just look at the Ronan Google calendar and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Thank you, Courtney, for both being organized, and for being super cool.

Coaches have a hard job. Bret Thompson is kind of a legend in Class C girls basketball. It was an honor to meet you sir, and thanks for all of your help.

Jim Benn is also very organized with his stats for both football and track in Ronan and made my job pretty easy. Coach Yocum, thanks for the great interviews as your Arlee football team went all the way through the playoffs. Coach Irvine, your style of coaching basketball at Two Eagle River was inspirational this year. A few other favorites for me were Bill Stockton.Cami Evenson, Bob Hislop, and Matt Olson.

Kendal Anderson in Mission does it all. She coaches a bunch of different things and seems to be involved in a lot of school activities. Thanks for the pictures and all sorts of information. 

I don’t think high schools could function without their secretaries. I don’t think I could have either. Thanks to all of you, especially Val in Arlee, who I felt like I called about once a day.

When I wasn’t doing sports, my favorite subject was 4H and agriculture. Nori Pearce, thanks for being awesome to me. Jack Stivers, thank you for your info on agriculture.

When I was on the sidelines, I met a few pretty cool people. I will especially miss Ron and Carol Phillips. You guys are my favorite. Kenny McClure, I finally got your picture in the paper. It was about time.

One of the first things I did after becoming editor was to meet with two people. The first was Paul Fugleberg, a legend around here in the newspaper industry. Thanks for chatting with me Paul. I think I could sit and listen to your stories for days and learn so much from you. The second person I went to was Rob McDonald. Rob, thanks for taking time to chat with me and for being honest and super helpful to me all the time.

A few others I would like to thank include Susan Lake, for your support in the last year, Shirley Burland for making great Mochas for me on Mondays, and especially John Heglie for teaching me the finer points of stats and the importance of mentioning as many kids as possible in each article.

Lastly, I want to thank the kids. At 23, I guess I’m still hip enough for the high schoolers to talk to me. I learned a lot of things from you guys, many of which I really didn’t need to know. Good luck in your future endeavors.