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Editor's endless visions changed newspaper
and its staff
By Bill Whitaker
Because it's in the nature of this column to occasionally mark
the passing of all things great and small, allow me today to mark
the passing of Glenn Dromgoole.
Not from this earth, mind you, just from this newsroom.
Although I was swept up in many of his grandiose ideas and
even was inspired by a few, Glenn and I were never close. In the
dozen years he was editor and chief visionary of this newsroom,
I don't think we broke bread together even half that many times.
Still, he left an indelible mark on this paper and all of us
who toiled in putting it out.
Glenn took over as editor New Year's Day 1986, though he actually
had been in the newsroom three months prior to that, studying
the paper, acquainting himself with the organization and trying
to get a handle on Abilene and the area. Although the lanky, pipe-smoking
newsman with bangs kept to himself, a few things about him slipped
out - and not just that he was supposed to be a wild-eyed visionary.
For one thing, he was from someplace called Sour Lake, which
just plain didn't sound good. Plus, he was a preacher's kid -
and as another preacher's kid jokingly told us, there was definitely
no good in that.
Glenn was also an Aggie. Because we'd had a dose of journalistically
inspired Aggieism courtesy of slow-talking, long-winded (though
much-beloved) Farm Editor J.T. Smith back in the 1970s, we knew
that his being an Aggie didn't necessarily speak in the new editor's
favor.
Finally, the new editor had once been the hamburger editor
at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. As "burgermeister,"
he conducted a search around Cowtown for the very best burger.
He actually had other, loftier titles at the paper but seemed
to enjoy recalling that one best.
LORD OVER THE NEWSROOM
In time we got to know other things about Glenn, especially
after he took over the reins from departing editor Dick Tarpley.
First and foremost, Glenn was a supreme architect of change,
which was probably good, because papers around the country were
struggling to keep up with changing times. Such times fit in fine
with the new editor because he believed most change was healthy
anyway.
Indeed, if Glenn were lord over all the heavens, he'd have
the sun coming up in the east one day, the west the next and the
north the day after that. Dizzy birds and bees would never know
where they were going, it's true, but every day would be, well,
a new day. Predictability was something Glenn decried.
Coupled with that was the shortest memory of any man I've ever
met. While we'd be implementing one bit of change he had ordered,
his mind would be racing light years ahead to solve yet another
dilemma, regardless of whether it impacted upon the change he'd
just introduced.
During my stint as city editor, then-News Editor Bob Lapham
and I were told we needed to dress up the front page better by
adding more stories. Glenn then diagrammed just what he wanted,
a design that offered a staggering 11 to 13 stories on Page One.
We made it work, too, though Page One, in the words of one
of my wittier colleagues, looked more like a "bulletin board"
than a newspaper. Still, the editor seemed happy with a Page One
that offered its readers more news and more variety. Then a couple
of months later, he came up to us shaking his head and a copy
of the paper and asked us why the front page looked so gawdawful
ugly and why on earth we had put so many blasted stories on Page
One.
Bob and I just looked at each other, then dutifully went back
to laying out the paper the way we used to.
HE STOLE MY JOKE
Although Glenn sometimes marched to his own drummer, he at
least tried to conform to some standards. I remember one conference
where several editors had to defend Gary Larson's daily cartoon
"The Far Side." To our amazement, Glenn just didn't
get it. He just didn't think it was funny.
Later, though, when Gary Larson sent an autographed, blown-up
cartoon of his to the newspaper, Glenn hung it on his wall.
His occasional contradictions amazed us. Although he usually
left my column alone, Glenn once edited an arguably tasteless
joke out of my column about some guy at the pearly gates of heaven.
"I wouldn't be editor for long if I let this get in,"
he told me in a humorous tone.
I happily bowed to his judgment.
A week later, I learned he had been going around town telling
all of his friends this very same tasteless joke.
He also hated the word "arguably."
Oddly for an editor, he had a distaste for politics - and,
considering some of the politicos coming by for our paper's endorsement,
this dislike made perfect sense. You could see Glenn's eyes glaze
over when some of them rambled on and on about things they had
no intention of really doing.
Even here, though, he had an impact. Years ago he impatiently
questioned one highly dubious, perennial city candidate so thoroughly
this person never ran again.
Glenn spoke on behalf of his staff, though often in odd fashion.
During a recent Headliners journalism awards ceremony, our lone
editorial page staffer Jeff Wolf got into a conversation with
an editorial page writer from the Dallas Morning News.
During their chat, Jeff was told by the Dallas writer that
the editorial page staff there had an editorial page editor, six
editorial writers, a person who handled letters to the editor,
a secretary and an illustrator.
"Oh," Glenn quipped, interrupting, "Jeff doesn't
do illustrations!"
During a roast for the departing editor at Harlow's Smokehouse
last Friday afternoon, Glenn remarked that he had tried to maintain
a college atmosphere in the newsroom, one in which ideas were
always valued, regardless of whom they came from.
True enough. He also gave some of us some remarkable opportunities.
Whatever else he did, the ideas Glenn Dromgoole brought and
the passions he tried to instill in his employees did make us
care more about what we do and made us think more about our ultimate
customer in the process - in this case, the reader.
And if Glenn's own peculiarities and passions sometimes got
in our way, that only made life at the Abilene Reporter-News more
interesting for us birds and bees.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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