Last day in the newsroom: This job made me a Tucsonan

When I was hired by the Star, I expected I’d stay two or three years, then try to find a job in a bigger city.

Thirty-six years later, this is my last day in the newsroom.

I wasn’t here long before an assignment with photographer Jack Sheaffer showed me the value of becoming part of a community. One Friday evening Jack and I were returning from Ajo, where we’d reported on the effects of a copper mine strike. I dozed off, but awakened to the sensation that Jack’s huge Chrysler was slowing to a stop. We’d run out of gas. Jack muttered a few Spanish swear words before announcing that he would hitchhike to Tucson.

What a crazy idea, I thought. It was almost dark and we were on an empty stretch of state highway. No one would come along, and if they did, they certainly weren’t going to pick up a strange man with a fat cigar hanging from his mouth.

About 10 minutes later a pickup truck passed, then braked and backed up. A Tohono O’odham man called out to Jack by name. He and his family were headed to Tucson to buy groceries. Jack climbed in the truck and they drove off to Three Points to get gas.

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While they were gone, a second vehicle passed, braked and backed up. The driver was on his way to Tucson from his job at Kitt Peak and recognized Jack’s car. He stayed with me until Jack returned.

Does everyone in Southern Arizona know Jack, I wondered. Later, I realized that the answer was, yes. Jack was a native Tucsonan and one of the biggest characters I’ve been blessed to work with at the Star. At the time of the gas incident, though, what I most took away was that journalism leads to something even more important — friendships and belonging.

My job at the Star has made me a Tucsonan. I’ve been paid to go to the horsetrack, the Legislature, the fair, funerals, the jail, City Hall, federal court, Triple T Truckstop and cotton fields. I hear every week from readers who thank the Star for telling them about their town — our town.

Since I announced my departure — not retirement, I doubt I’ll ever retire — colleagues have remarked on how much newspapering has changed. The web has made every minute a deadline and expanded the Star’s audience far beyond Tucson. And I never imagined that reporters would carry phones in their pockets — not just to call sources, but also to shoot photos and video and even to file stories.

Yet at its core, the work remains the same. We get the news by talking to people. If we do it right, readers come to know us not just as journalists but as fellow citizens who care about one another and our community. Keep your gas tank full, dear readers, but count on me to stop if I see you stranded along the road.