{"id":58541,"date":"2025-06-29T00:03:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T00:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58541"},"modified":"2025-06-29T00:03:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T00:03:41","slug":"i-am-the-newspaper-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58541","title":{"rendered":"I am the ‘newspaper guy’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n\r\n

AMARILLO<\/strong> — I attended the memorial service of a dear friend today, schmoozed with plenty of folks I once knew back in the old days and came away with a strange loss of identity.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You see, I once called this bustling city of 200,000 people my home, My wife and I lived here for 23 years, longer than in any community during our 51 years of married life together. Therefore, I was a bit puzzled by a seeming lack of recognition from some of those folks I once knew.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When I said the words “newspaper guy” or “Amarillo Globe-News,” I could see the light bulbs flicker on in their minds. “Oh, yeaaahhhh<\/em>!” came the response. “I remember you now! Hey, welcome back home. Man, we sure could use you around here these days,” they would say … or words to that effect.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There you have it. I am identified by the job I performed for a newspaper that once was a significant presence in the lives of residents throughout the Texas Panhandle. It isn’t any longer. The Globe-News exists today mostly in the memories of those who subscribed to the morning Daily News, the evening Globe-Times or the Sunday News-Globe. Many of them read all three papers, given that they were produced by separate newsgathering and opinion page staffs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Those days are long gone. Forever, too. The paper — if we can call it that — is merely a dimming shadow of its once-glorious self. The Globe-Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961, print journalism’s top prize.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What does any of this have to do with me? Not much, truth be told. I wasn’t part of that glorious past. I was part of a past that meant more to people’s lives than the present does or that the future ever will. We weren’t a great newspaper when I joined it in 1995, but we were solid and we damn sure reported the news thoroughly throughout the region.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

What I didn’t realize is how much the job I did for the community melded itself into my identity. I will not complain about it. I am just realizing it out loud for the first time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It’s all very strange.<\/p>\r\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMARILLO — I attended the memorial service of a dear friend today, schmoozed with plenty of folks I once knew back in the old days and came away with a strange loss of identity. You see, I once called this bustling city of 200,000 people my home, My wife and I lived here for 23 … Continue reading I am the ‘newspaper guy’<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[179,2978,4668],"class_list":["post-58541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-media-news","tag-agn-media","tag-media","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58543,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58541\/revisions\/58543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}