I
still remember the first words Terrill Patterson ever said to me.
It was December 1998, and I had just arrived in town as the
new editor of the 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 -a town whose existence I was only barely aware of a month before.
Terrill, as 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料's venerable, if eccentric town know-it-all and council watchdog, was the first name on my "Coffee List" - a list of people to meet to get a sense of my new hometown and what made it tick.
In Terrill's case, it wasn't coffee, but a glass of milk ordered in the cozy confines of Quinn's Bakery Caf茅 - a delightful spot, nearly 10 years gone now, run by a surly European Red Seal pastry chef who made the most amazing desserts known to man.
"You'll have a good term here," Terrill said to me over that glass of milk, still wearing his trademark hardhat with oversized cardboard brim even though we were indoors. "Three or four years is about long enough. After that you'll lose your objectivity."
It's been nearly 12 years, and I haven't followed up with Terrill on that prediction, mainly because I don't need to ask him to know it's true - I have lost my objectivity. I have fallen in love with this town.
I certainly never meant to: like so many millions of Whistler-bound skiers, I saw 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 as nothing more than a way station on the path to my real goal - in my case, a meteoric advance through the stratosphere of journalism on my way to being editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail before my 30th birthday.
But once I got here, something changed - as it has changed so many people who came here with short-term schemes. This town has a way of drawing you in, of changing your plans and making you stay.
I found a life - lasting friendships, both inside and outside our newspaper office. I found love, in the form of a born-and-raised 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 girl, Laura Dorosh, who I had the good fortune to marry nine years ago.
I found family, as she gave birth to two beautiful and amazing children and we discovered the wonders of this town all over again through their eyes. In short, I found a home.
As a journalist, The Chief has given me some amazing and varied opportunities, without having to move or change employers.
I added publisher to the editor's title some nine years ago, then started looking after other newspapers for our parent company, Glacier Media, starting with the Whistler Question five years ago on my way to a total of five community newspapers today.
Thanks to my experience at The Chief, my goal of being editor-in-chief of a big national newspaper has changed too; I'm a community newspaperman to the bone now. I firmly believe that a truly successful newspaper isn't one that covers what's going on around the world; it's one where the odds are good that the person you see on the front page is someone you'll run into on the street.
It's a challenging time for the media right now, especially for newspapers. But ones like The Chief are doing just fine, while the big city papers are struggling to re-invent themselves and do a crazy new thing called "hyper-local" journalism -in other words, what we do here every week.
There will always be an appetite to know what's happening on your street, in your child's school and on your local tax bill - and The Chief will be there to tell you, in print and online, when you need it.
The ways we bring you that news will change and evolve, but the mission is the same.
And now, as you have probably guessed from the reminiscent tone of this column, my part in that mission is coming to an end. As of July 29, I say goodbye to 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 and The Chief and on Aug. 3 I say hello to Kamloops and the team at the Kamloops Daily News as the new publisher.
Unfortunately, there are far too many individuals for me to be able to thank them all here in print. This has been an incredibly welcoming place, and my family and I leave with heavy hearts and the knowledge that wherever our lives take us, 老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 will be with us forever.
So instead, my final thanks will be to you, the reader.
Thank you for letting me into your homes weekly for more than a decade, for sharing your stories and for giving me the privilege of sharing them with others, for never hesitating to express your thoughts and feelings, your praise and your criticism, whether it be by email, phone calls in the middle of parties or being stopped in the street or the lineup at the grocery store.
Even when we disagreed, I always valued hearing what you had to say and felt fortunate to have the privilege - even the privilege of occasionally being yelled at.
Reading the first edition of The Chief without my name in it somewhere is going to be an eerie experience. But I look forward to keeping in touch with my old friends and neighbours through these pages and online.
老澳门六合彩开奖记录资料 is an amazing community and is fortunate to have an equally amazing, award-winning newspaper and an incredibly talented team to put it out - a wonderful crew of people who I am proud to have worked with and also happy to call friends.
Goodbye, and thank you.
- Tim Shoults
