40 years at Sault This Week

It was 40 years ago this month — February of 1982 — that I walked through the front door of 2 Towers Street, opened the first door on my right and headed up the stairs to a cozy loft that overlooked the busy composing room of the Sault This Week, which was then called Shopper News.

As typesetters Helen Gagnon and Rosa Ferranti were busy downstairs creating the numerous advertisements that would fill the pages of Shopper News, the husband and wife editorial tandem of Tom and Gail Douglas were on Tuesday morning deadline upstairs, cutting and pasting news copy ahead of that afternoon’s printing for Wednesday delivery and distribution.

Taking a seat alongside the Douglas duo, I began to layout the sports copy that I had already written, using an “exacto” knife to fit the copy around the advertisements that were laid out on the page. And so it began, an association with the good, old weekly newspaper that has now reached 40 years — with many more still ahead, I hope.

The venerable building at 2 Towers Street in the Sault’s downtown wasn’t exactly a state of the art facility. It was creaky and crowded and not that well designed and the ink smell from the printing presses would envelop the building every Tuesday.

Memories of my formative years at Shopper News/Sault This Week are still easy to recollect. My daughter, Cara, was born 13 months after I put together my first sports page as a member of Alrick Publishing, which owned the newspaper. And my son, Bobby, followed in September of 1984.

The tabloid newspaper — complete with a TV Views/Realty Guide supplement — was delivered for free every Wednesday and was probably about 90 percent advertising content at that time.

At first, I had just one sports page of local copy to fill. But it gradually increased to two and then three pages of 50 per cent sports copy and 50 per cent advertising as publisher and part owner Rick Muncaster seemed to like the job that I was doing.

The aforementioned Tom and Gail Douglas moved on to other journalistic endeavours about a year or so after I started and the editorial content of the Shopper News consisted mainly of my sports, Bob Diotte and his ‘Take Seven’ column, Jim Kinkaid and his ‘All The Best’ column and a few press releases that served as “fill” on pages that were not otherwise full of classified ads.

Muncaster, as publisher, was an okay guy to work for. He would often say one thing and do another but he mostly left me alone when it came to writing sports and I can’t say that I was bothered by him even if I never felt overly comfortable in his commanding presence.

A few years after I started out at Shopper News, Muncaster changed the name to Sault This Week and expanded the editorial content of the paper to include full time employees. Muncaster asked me if I would become the editor of the paper — he probably couldn’t find anyone else — and so I became in charge of both news and sports for the Sault This Week.

I did that for more than a few good years and relied on a staff of full time and part time reporters, photographers and freelancers to help put out a growing news and sports section of the paper every week.

Eventually, I asked Muncaster if I could go back to just being a freelance sports editor and he happily agreed — and subsequently made a safe selection in Sandra Paul as news editor after an experience with a blowhard editor by the name of Bob Roth ended in chaotic fashion.

Muncaster eventually sold the Sault This Week — he would tell me, years later, that he regretted doing so — and remained on as publisher for a number of years before setting up his own advertising agency.

I got to work alongside a number of good, dedicated, hardworking writers and photographers while the Sault This Week remained downtown at its Towers Street headquarters. Names that quickly come to mind as former reporters and/or photographers and freelance contributors from those days include Fred Helmer, George Kinkaid, Sandy Scott, Barbara Rudelic, Joe DiMaria, Christine Rivet, Jody Lynn Mills, Rick Partridge, Orest Witiw, Joe Della Savia, Daphny Gebhart, Susan Staniforth, Marissa Becker, Barbara Blakely, Ann Sarich, Peter Denley, Paul Caldbick, Bev Luciani-Dupuis, Ken Hilderley Jr., Don Dorazio, Andrea Maenza, Paul Norbo, Scott Costen, Leesa Parlow, Bob Mihell, Sandra Hodge, Peter Rowe, Darren Taylor and aforementioned news editor Sandra Paul.

And as a publication that was — and still is — driven by advertising sales, I worked for many years in the old Towers Street building with venerable ad reps such as Jim Kinkaid, Hans Brombacher, Tim Rankin, Jerry Penney, Vic Finn, Leslie Lewis, Gene MacKenzie, John Chambers, Barry Muncaster, Mae Manchester, Carmen Camirand, Jim Alton and my “hockey talk” buddy Ron Bradley.

Good guy Fred Bright would eventually replace Munacaster as publisher before the paper changed hands again and Postmedia came along as the new and current owner with Maureen Montanini at the helm and the ageless Richard Plaunt taking over as news editor.

We mostly all work from home now and current writer/photographer contributors include Sara McCleary, Bob Davies and the time-honoured Doug Millroy.

For me, it has been a mostly good 40 years so far at the iconic Shopper News/Sault This Week. This publication is still a notable presence in the Sault and I hope to keep turning out the weekly sports copy for as long as God (and Postmedia) allow me to do so.