Valley News and Views

Seasoned Guest Staff to Take Over Valley News and Views

Does This Mean Paper Will At Long Last Be Operated By People Who Know What They’re Doing?? Wow, I Guess So!

In with the new and out with the old. Pictured above are three of the incredible guest staffers who will be coming to take over the Valley News and Views for a couple week. The old staff, pictured below will be taking a much needed break from their hectic routines and vacationing at an undisclosed location in the Animal’s Republic of Robbin.

It’ll take four or five people to replace VNV editor Larry Ritzo when he goes on vacation late this month. Three seasoned journalists, a fresh young cub reporter and possibly a writer of books will take over the paper for the editions of May 27 and June 3.

Richard Johnson, who was graduated from DHS in 1959, will lead a crew comprised of former colleague Jane Earle of Denver, his son Tim Johnson of Denver, former UND English professor Dick Conway of Port Townsend, Wash., and author Richard Wood of Denver.

Richard Johnson, a retired editor who spent most of his career in daily and weekly newspapers, began the Drayton Newspaper Project late last year after hearing from friends in the area as well as former Draytonites how much they liked the paper and how hard the editor was working to keep it running. “I know from experience that editing a small-town newspaper is a seven-day-a-week job, and that the only chance you have for a vacation is to have a heart attack,” Johnson said.

So, he approached Ritzo last fall while visiting town about the possibility of filling in for the editor for a couple of issues so that Ritzo could have some time off. Ritzo agreed, and Johnson went back to his home in Denver to round up some other volunteers to come to Drayton and help him out.

Ms. Earle, who was on the Denver Post staff with Johnson in the seventies, immediately signed on. She also was Johnson’s boss in the communications office at the Denver Water Department. Johnson, who was editor of the agency’s publications, and Earle are both retired from the water department.

Raised in a small town in Ohio, Earle has an extensive background in journalism.

She has been a reporter at the Oklahoma Journal and Denver Post, editor and publisher of The Denver Magazine, managing editor of the Moscow Tribune (an English-language newspaper in the Russian capital), and has worked in television news and politics. Earle is now a freelance media consultant and journalism lecturer at Metropolitan State College in Denver and has held similar positions at other colleges.

Conway was Johnson’s English instructor at UND, later earning a doctorate in literature at Denver University. He has taught at several colleges and retired from Lamar, Colo., Community College several years ago, when he and wife Esther moved to Port Townsend. He has written numerous articles and columns on various topics for newspapers and periodicals across the country.

Conway is familiar with the Drayton area, having been among the guests when Dick Johnson has hosted almost annual gatherings on his farmstead near town for the purpose of advancing intellectual thought and cultural awareness. Conway is an avid golfer, baseball fan and reader of books you’ve probably never heard of.

Tim Johnson also has been a visitor to Drayton from time to time. He has helped his dad clean up the farmstead and about ten years ago tore down a wood workshop on the site, selling the salvaged wood in Denver for business decor. He attended high school at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania and expects to earn a degree in math from Metro State this summer. Although Tim hung around his father’s several newspaper offi ces, this is his first stab at news reporting.

Richard Johnson left North Dakota in 1964 for the Navy. He later wrote for the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post and published the weekly paper in Cooperstown, N.Y., in the early eighties. He edited a large weekly and small daily in Virginia before returning to Colorado in 1996 to work at the Denver Water Department. He finds his way to Drayton almost yearly to visit friends and hang out on his farmstead.

Richard Wood, before earning a law degree, worked as a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News with Dick Johnson in the late sixties. He left the practice of law some time ago and in recent years has penned two books: “Here Lies Colorado,” which chronicles the lives of famous Coloradans and where they are buried, and “Survival of Rural America: Small Victories and Bitter Harvests,“about the challenges facing small towns in the Midwest, notably Kansas, and their residents. Wood has voiced interest in participating in the Drayton project, but his plans are indefi nite as of this writing.

Also on the roster is Jennifer Wollerman, of New York City, who will be traveling with Jane Earle, her mother.