Sean C. Morgan
This is my last week at The New Era.
To the day, it’s been 24.5 years since I started working for Debbie Paul and Alex Paul, who loves to tell people about seeing me getting out of my car for an interview. He leaned over and told Debbie, “I hope to God that’s not Sean Morgan with that ponytail.”
Well, Alex, my dad finally got to it a couple of years back, and the new boss, Police Chief Jeff Lynn, is insisting that I cut it. Maybe I’ll let you cut a little.
Anyway, I’m going to work as the community services officer and evidence technician at Sweet Home on June 1. This is obviously bittersweet. I’m excited about new things in a place I know well and and a community I’ve come to love.
I have worked in and around the Police Department throughout the entirety of my professional journalism career, and it’s clearly a terrific place, an excellent organization, dedicated to public service and integrity, defending the rights of Sweet Home’s citizens.
It is with great pride in that organization that I make this transition to a new role in our community.
But the downside is I will no longer be “the camera guy” or “the newspaper guy.” I’ve been called a lot of things in the past 24.5 years, a lot of it quite angry and foul and a lot more of it kind and friendly. Probably none of it is quite as fun as being the “camera guy” or the “newspaper guy.” That’s what the kids call me, except for the handful who actually learned my name – Yeah, you were one of the friendliest in all those years, Hayden McDonald. Thanks for always looking out for Scott and me when we had a question or needed to organize a photo.
It really hit home when I was delivering papers in a local convenience store early this month. A new clerk greeted me and told me I was always her favorite when I visited her school. She knew I would be taking a photo, and she might end up in the newspaper.
She said really enjoyed that. So have I. It’s one of the things I love about this business of hyper-local community journalism. It is exactly the biggest reason I have failed to move on to bigger and better things, as is expected in this business.
I grew up in Salem. No one I knew was ever in the Statesman Journal – ever, not for good or bad. I can think of just one tiny exception. When I was growing up, I vaguely remember the Statesman still reported traffic citations, and I vaguely remember seeing my first of many traffic tickets in that newspaper.
It’s not like that here, where almost everyone will end up with a photo in the paper – or at least a name – at some point or another.
The New Era is dedicated to this community, the good, the bad and the ugly. We document this community’s history. We tell this community’s stories.
Many of you know us personally or at least in passing. We are not nameless faces in a humongous crowd. We are individuals, all of us. And our stories are the stories of Sweet Home.
No one who grew up in Salem can really understand that. You go out, you won’t know a single person you see most of the time. Until I got into this business in college, I never met a single person who worked at the Statesman Journal. Living in Salem was impersonal and cold outside the communities you find at school, church or work.
Here, it’s hard to get through the grocery store and not recognize someone. Here, we cover the people of Sweet Home – all of them and all of our community. For those who wonder why we run photos of tragic events, in just a couple of years that becomes history. That’s our collective history. Our history includes life and death. It includes good and bad. It includes the pretty and the ugly.
We are journalists. We journal. We also feel,. We feel empathy as well as elation from the events and stories we cover.
It is with great sadness we reported the tragic death of an entire Sweet Home family last month and the deaths last weekend of two local teens, siblings, victims of an alleged drunken driver.
And it is with absolute excitement we cover the discovery of a massive leak in our water system that explains a massive amount of lost water – a huge victory for our Public Works staff, most of whom we know by name.
Former basketball coach and social studies teacher Mark Risen told me when he came to Sweet Home more than two decades ago that he had heard we cover everything, right down to a neighbor painting a fence. While that may be a little hyperbolic, it’s not too far off the mark. And although Risen moved away many years ago, this is still his community. This is home for his kids, and he still visits regularly, as we reported recently, to deliver his tasty salsa at Thriftway.
I urge everyone to continue to support this newspaper. It’s a true gem. When Alex and Debbie sold The New Era, it was a heartbreaking day, but it came with a silver lining. Scott and Miriam Swanson are amazing people, and they are committed to this newspaper and community. They’re different, but like Alex and Debbie, I love that I have had them in my life. Please, keep on supporting them and their mission to tell our stories.
To the staff of The New Era, past and present, Diane (I forgot your last name), Vicky (I can’t remember how to spell your last name), Ina Lee, Pam Mitchell, Michelle Knight, Kim Whaley, Val Lemmon, Firiel Severns (my former “work wife” as my “wife wife,” Tiffany, liked to call her), Donalyn Hotrum, Sarah Brown, Audrey Caro, Chris Chapman, Casey Rossio, Alex and Debbie Paul and Miriam and Scott Swanson, it has been a pleasure and an honor. I have missed working with those of you who have moved on, and I will miss working with you all beginning next week.
I won’t be gone, not completely. I’m remaining a part of the Sweet Home community, and I will be around to help transition The New Era and to help out when needed. I’ll become one of those folks we have had over the years assisting us with proofing, photos, sports and occasionally other areas of our coverage.
You folks have made our very busy lives and hectic schedules workable. There are many of you, but among the most prolific have been people like the late Gary Graham, Steve Presnal, Joan Scofield and Heather Thorpe. The list is very long, so if I didn’t directly name you, just know that you have been and are very much appreciated. You have helped and continue to help make our newspaper better.
Anyway, my byline will continue to appear for couple of weeks. Stories often sit around for a week or three – and sometimes longer – before they run. We only have so much space.
It has been my delight to do this job. I’ve done it the best I can.
I thank you all for tolerating me for 24.5 years – or all of your lives in some cases. State House District 17 candidate Dylan Richards wasn’t born when I started working at The New Era, for example.
Sweet Home, you have been an amazing community, and I have been fortunate enough to have an amazing career here.
But it is with this column that “the newspaper guy” is officially signing off.
Thank you, Sweet Home. Thank you, Sweet Home Police Department. Thank you, The New Era.