Just Folks
JOHN MAHONEY
Mr. A. Moeykens of Pine Hill enjoyed green peas from his garden last Sunday. They were the first peas ready in our circulation area.
The family connection worked well for Albee during his three stints at the Daily Express: 1964 (before going in the navy), 1968-72, and when he returned to the Daily Express in 1978 after reporting for New Hampshire's award-winning daily, The Valley News, and editing several weeklies in the Granite State.
"That was a bonus, not a burden" he said. "The real burden we all had to carry was the editorial page."
[Editor's note: the editorial page in those days was marked by it's ultra-conservative town/state/world view and it's adder-fanged language.]
The late Franz Hunt was a partner in the paper; grim-visaged and vinegary are not inaccurate adjectives. He hired Albee twice, fired him once.
"When I was a kid I mowed his lawn," Albee said. " He fired me because I didn't clip close enough to his trees."
But the years mellowed old Franz -- when his ex-lawn boy became his reporter, he'd leave bags of ripe tomatoes on his desk.
"I lived in an apartment," Albee said with a laugh. "I didn't know what to do with them. I had a hell of a time getting rid of them."
Albee took over as managing editor in 1980 and has juggled small budgets and a transient reporting staff from day one.
The Pulitzer Company of St. Louis, Missouri, recently bought the Daily Express from the Scripps League, which acquired it from Hunt's granddaughters in 1977. Albee says he is "optimistic" that better days are ahead for the 5000 circulation Daily Express because the new owner is "journalism oriented."
Newport, once a vibrant rail center in the age of trains, is a no-growth town of 5000 on the shores of Lake Memphremagog, which is shared by Vermont and Quebec. The economy, long dependent on Canadian shoppers for weekly infusions of cash, is flat now that Canadians are shopping at home because of the low exchange rate on the loonie.
Long separated from those distant glory days when it was a thriving railroad town, Newport's economic base now relies heavily on social services, Albee said.
"North Country Hospital, the state prison, state employees (Vermont is erecting a new state office building overlooking the lake), Northeast Kingdom Mental Health, the high school and elementary schools, Northeast Kingdom Community Action -- that's the base now," he said.
And the Vermont he grew up in has changed politically, too.
"It was rock-ribbed Republican back then," he said. "Now, the Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office, and the local people vote a lot more independently."
In March Albee will turn 57, the same age at which his father died in a tragic automobile accident in northern Vermont.
I asked if he will stay in the news business until he reaches 65 -- I mean, what else is there that makes any sense to an old journalist besides city council meetings, rising tax rates and zoning hassles, auto accidents, drug busts, and the odd murder?
"Oh God, don't ask me to plan ahead that far," he said. "I take it day by day."
Just like he puts out the paper, five days a week. |
For the better part of the past 30 years Terry Albee has reported for or edited the Daily Express. His Uncle Reg, a truly old-fashioned small town newman, was the city editor for years; his Aunt Gertrude compiled the highly popular "Personals":
