Van R. Richmond
Former Plain Dealer Page One editor Van R. Richmond, 85, who passed away just a few days before Christmas, didn’t really have the appearance of a typical newsroom editor; he never wore a suit or tie, never took extended lunch hours, never in my 16 years at the newspaper did I ever witness him taking a stroll down to the local watering hole frequented by so many reporters and editors, The Headliner. In fact, I distinctly remember asking him one night why he never went to the Headliner, he responded with his typical wit: ``I’m already supporting three bartenders, I don’t need a fourth.’’
If you wandered into the PD newsroom and bumped into Richmond for the first time, you might have thought you were meeting a foreman at a meat factory, instead of the news editor of Ohio’s largest newspaper. Richmond charged through the newsroom like a bull in a china shop, sporting his signature crew cut (1950's style) usually wearing plain everyday pants or blue jeans with a red checkered shirt and his eye glasses pushed slightly above his forehead. When the mood struck him, you might see him wearing suspenders, long before Larry King made them fashionable again.
Richmond’s external façade, at first blush, was one of a stern hard-nosed editor who was gruff and grumpy, but once you became accustomed to his peculiar ways, you soon learned he was as soft as the other side of a silk pillow. But whether Richmond was kinder than he was crotchety, those around him usually listened to his sharp commands. I remember he asked some editorial clerks to do something for him; three or four us started discussing who should be the one to do what he asked. Like a bolt of lightning, Richmond howled: ``Let’s not make this a committee project-just do it.!’’
Tom Andrzejewski , a media communication specialist at the Oppidan Group Inc, who spent 25 years at The Plain Dealer, first as a copy boy and then as a general assignment reporter and Urban Affairs columnist, remembered Richmond most for his humor and endearing gentle ways, but who still had a natural flair for striking fear into the hearts of rookie copy boys like Andrzejewski. ``One night’’ Andrzejewski wrote in an email. ``I was fooling around at the rewrite bank when I was supposed to be waiting for the final edition Page One proofs in the composing room. Either the proofs were early or I was late (probably the latter), but the whole City Room, including sports and the late reviewers in Sunday feature, heard Van's voice bellowing from the composing room, "Hey, White Eagle!" (Richmond’s nickname for Andrzejewski ) several sets of proofs came flying down the stairs for me to collect and distribute.’’
In the early 1980’s, well before Windows and the dawn of the Internet made newspaper production so much easier, the computer system in The Plain Dealer newsroom was archaic, clunky and subject to meltdowns at a drop of a hat. Often the nighttime systems editor, Pat Holicheck (later to be known as Pat Gessler), would phone Richmond to let him know to get people off the computer so they could tweak the system. After these computer malfunctions became more frequent, Richmond probably got tired of yelling for people to get off the computers; so he invested in a bicycle horn, which was parked right next to him at his desk. When people needed to get off the computers, he would simply squeeze the rubber ball and a loud horn echoed through the newsroom, everyone’s signal that the system wasn’t working.
For those of us who were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Richmond’s engaging character, we’re well aware that Van wouldn’t have taken kindly to all the recent advances in technology: with the Internet becoming more important than the print newspaper, with Facebook and Twittering becoming the rage, and the spoken word replaced by emails and texting on mobile devices. I can only imagine the harsh words he would have offered up for the sea of bloggers clogging up the Internet and the way the graphics department has hijacked page one of the daily newspaper.
I remember running in to him at a funeral home (for a deceased Plain Dealer employee) shortly after his retirement in the mid-1990’s and asking him if he has his own email. No!! he barked. He went on to tell me he wanted no part of computers or emails and was perfectly content reading and playing cards with his cronies three or four times a week.
Even before Richmond stunned everyone by slipping unannounced out the newsroom without a retirement party or co-workers being able to gather around his computer to sing `` For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" -technology was starting to get catch up to Van and he clearly wanted no part of it. I remember in the early 1990’s the newsroom copy and news desk editors were being trained for pagination, a process which allowed editors to electronically lay out a page, eventually eliminating the need for printer’s altogether. I recall Richmond kept avoiding the training sessions, until finally he was forced, reluctantly, to undergo training for this new innovation that he kept avoiding as if he were being asked to undergo a root canal.
So as his family, friends, co-workers, and former editorial clerks like myself (who was lucky enough to observe this page one maestro from a distance) mourn his loss, remember his humor and many attributes, and celebrate his sound news judgment and professionalism that he brought to the newspaper for 34 years, we will also take great comfort in knowing that Van was a news editor at a time when a U.S. daily newspaper was a highly valued medium; Van thankfully didn’t have to witness the newspaper’s mass migration to the Internet; he didn’t have to hear all the gloom and doom of the loss of newspaper revenue and dwindling circulation; he was long gone before the staff downsizing and mass layoffs so emblematic of many newsrooms today became the norm. Most importantly, Van didn’t have to recoil at the sight of the content of the newspaper that he loved so much become reduced to such a small size(at least on some days) that you could practically read it at a stop sign.
For worn out dinosaurs like myself, it seems that I’m becoming more wistful by the day, remembering all the wise and cagey veterans that used to populate The Plain Dealer newsroom with their distinctive wit and sage advice, journalists like Bill (W.F.) Miller, Don Bean, high school sports reporter Dick ``Zip’’ Zunt, and now Van R. Richmond, all gone, but fortunately their memories remain.
Gentlemen, thanks for the memories.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
December 27, 2010
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