Commentary by Christy Solo
Putting together this week’s Collector’s Edition of the Upper Rogue Independent and reading Edition #2 had me looking back on the *check’s notes* 17 years I’ve been writing for the URI.
Which is totally amazing, because I’m only 29 *cough*.
I was originally hired by Nancy Leonard in April, 2009, just one month after I “temporarily” moved in with my parents as I transitioned from Colorado to Oregon (the back-to-back terminal illnesses of my parents had a way of making “temporary” permanent).
Back to 2009; newly relocated, I spent a whopping two weeks of lounging around my parents’ house unemployed. Then Mom advised me I was going to go to a job interview at the local newspaper.
Long-time readers may recall that Margaret Bradburn used to report on Shady Cove city meetings for the URI. However, she was elected to Shady Cove City Council in November 2008. Having Bradburn continue to report on city meetings as a member of council would have been – to say the least – a conflict of interest. A new reporter was needed.
Bradburn was friends with my mom (via the approximate 8 million various organizations both women volunteered for) and thus I got the interview.
I wandered into the offices of the URI (back when they were where Pizza Schmizza is now) with my writing samples in hand.
Dear reader, the only writing samples I had were printouts of my online Tolkien Debate arguments.
Yup. True Tolkien fans went online in a Tolkien forum and debated topics such as, “Were the Nazgûl servants or thralls.”
In my defense, my debate arguments were some darn good writing, they were not, however reporting.
I’ve been a writer ever since I won my fourth-grade class essay contest. My prize was getting to attend the local fire department’s annual picnic. At that picnic I also won a goldfish in the ping pong ball toss game and two tickets to Knotts Berry Farm in a drawing. I was hooked on this writing stuff.
However, the only reporting I’d done was for my seventh-grade class reenactment of the Continental Congress. Myself and another classmate put out a daily one-page newsletter recounting the actions of John Handcock, Benjamin Franklin et al. who were portrayed by other classmates.
I will say that back in 2009 I had been an instructional designer for several corporations, designing online learning courses (which I continued to do until around 2013).
Honestly, that’s quite similar to reporting – both reporting and instructional design come down to “Take a whole lot of very complicated information and cram it into an easily understandable small number of words.” Oh and “add lots of graphics.”
In any event, apparently my Tolkien arguments were impressive enough that Leonard gave me a shot.
My very first article for the URI was a story on the First Annual Science Fair at Eagle Rock Elementary School and ran in the April 8, 2009 edition.
I wasn’t officially hired yet but apparently did well enough (it’s a fun little article!) that I was given a few more assignments and hired by the end of April.
Three owners and 12 years later I took over ownership of the URI and while I did not give myself a raise, at least I can’t fire me.
Fun fact: When Leonard owned the paper, we were all employees. After she died and new owner Ralph McKechnie took over, he fired all but the office staff, “So I won’t have to pay for insurance” and rehired us reporters as contractors.
Let me be clear, none of us had insurance through the URI before we were fired. But Ralph was Ralph, and from a paycheck standpoint, there was no discernable difference between being a “URI Staff Writer” and a “URI Contributing Writer.”
That said, to his credit McKechnie did let me run with my idea of “a column about bugs” and next month Crawlies with Cri will celebrate its 13th birthday.
Again, amazing, because as I said, I’m only 29…
