Time Marches On

Memories.  That's about all that's left of the Amarillo Globe-News building, where I worked for 17 years.  The corner of Ninth Avenue and Harrison Street in downtown Amarillo was home of the Globe-News for 70 years.  That changed last week when the paper moved into office space in the FirstBank Southwest building.

The reason: the newspaper has such few employees left in Amarillo.  GateHouse Media purchased the Globe-News last year and consolidated operations.  The paper is printed in Lubbock with pages designed and sent from the GateHouse Center for News and Design in Austin to the regional printing plant in Lubbock.

I remember when there were more reporters and editors than computers in the newsroom.  Reporters had to share computers.  Copy editors had to wait for one of the Mac computers we used to design pages.  If you got up for something, you often lost your seat.  You took a bathroom break at your own risk!

Only a skeleton crew remains in the Amarillo office.  A "Group Publisher" and "Regional Executive Editor" run both the Amarillo and Lubbock papers. 

 In recent weeks, I've read about the retirements of several longtime Globe-News writers.  Columnist Jon Mark Beilue (37 years at G-N), Sports Editor Lance Lahnert (also 37 years) and Director of Commentary Dave Henry (25+ years) have all called it a career.  The paper's just not the same without them.

I'm sure the new reporters and editors at the Globe-News will work just as hard to bring us the day's top stories.  Let's give them a chance.

Change is inevitable.  We have to change with it or get left behind.  Change is hard, but it can be a good thing, too.  I can now read the online edition of the Globe-News instead of the print edition.  That's a good thing.

I guess my message today would be: Embrace the innovations of the future but never forget the lessons of the past.