Remembering a dear friend and colleague

One of my many former bosses died the morning of Aug. 1. It didn’t take long before I received texts, messages, and calls from several past coworkers, for this man had been a dear friend to many souls. As often happens at such times, I felt sadness not just for his passing, but the realization that I had not seen or talked to him for several years. That reminded me of so many others I’d fallen out of touch with, starting with those who reached out to me. I pondered then if I subconsciously chose a reclusive life, if such patterns proved common of people torn from those they loved, or if I simply didn’t generate the kind of respect and admiration David did. That reinforced concerns I juggle over the seeming disregard people have for my novels, ministry, or publishing efforts. But another request kept me from drifting far down those difficult waters, for I soon told David’s wife June that I would gladly speak at his funeral.  

With that gathering a week away, I spent a few days weighing my memories, sorting them into order. I then put my clients off for a few days to write all my thoughts down. Asking God for help, I edited the text the next morning and afternoon, again and again, until the message seemed clear. I practiced reading it, noted how long it took, wondered if that was too long, made a few more tweaks, added a bit, took it out, and did my other day endeavors before going to bed. Rising to the funeral date, I did my morning book marketing posts, stopped at Chick-fil-A for a biscuit, prayed for help, edited David’s talk yet again, read it out loud, tried to make it sound more conversational, decided enough was enough, and started my two-hour drive to Yukon, Oklahoma. Arriving early, I got a Coke at Raising Cane’s, read the speech yet again, made a final trim, prayed for guidance, and went to the funeral… where I promptly set my text aside to improvise what I thought I knew quite well. Told I did a good job, yet remembering only the many things I left out, I thought I would share my unused script of David here, following one more edit for those not sharing our Journal Record past.

Here goes….

David Page blessed my life in many ways. So did June, for that matter, but today I’ll focus on David and our decades-long professional ties. That’s not to diminish the role he played in my personal life. He chuckled with me when the newfangled internet revealed my old game had become a global laughingstock, and he played a comforting role in my divorce – not just for me, but my daughters. I was not unique in such things; David offered a caring and helpful hand to everyone he knew. But most people know David and I from our decades of working together at The Journal Record business newspaper, so let’s look at the blessings I drew from my 20 years working with him. It proved a wild ride, one he always handled with humor, patience, and grace. 

I first met David in May 1984, as I took a reporting job with the paper. That’s also when I met June! David oversaw laying out each day’s edition, making him the third in command of the newsroom after Editor Max Nichols and Managing Editor J.E. McReynolds. So when those two were present, I saw little of David. Our paste-up staff operated in the basement of The Journal Record Building, while our newsroom worked from the third-floor mezzanine, the most difficult part of the building to rent out. That gave David plenty of exercise journeying up and down all those stairs at deadline, since our elevators were old and rather slow. But he had no problems with that, for David often participated in area sports leagues, which kept him in prime shape.  

June, on the other hand, I worked with each day, for as our secretary and editorial assistant, she maintained our amazing clip files and proofread every article we published. Like David, she enlivened the newsroom with her constant smile and vibrant personality, which often spurred humorous comments when she looked over my work. 

By the end of my first year, I was second in seniority among our eight reporters – yes, our turnover was high – so when J.E. left to join The Daily Oklahoman newspaper, I was in line for our fourth and last editing position. Not knowing J.E. had offered me a job, Max said I could take the editing seat if I wanted it, but he asked me not to, for he expected our State Capitol reporting job to open soon and he wanted me to fill it. Being married, with our first kid on the way, I was ever short on money, but I liked the JR and cared little for the OK, so I joined the editing team. That’s when I began working daily with David, helping guide our reporters, edit text, and fill other needs while handling all the JR’s special publications.

I soon learned that David drew all of his efforts from a wellspring of humor and optimism. Max could be difficult to work with, for his drive for journalistic excellence brought frequent corrections and headaches, but David handled it all with grace while providing a buffer for the rest of us. It wasn’t long before David took over daily management of our newsroom, as Max reduced his workload to balance his health concerns and teaching post at Oklahoma City University. June had also stepped away by this time, as David’s wife! That surprised and embarrassed me, for I thought I had a bead on everything going on in the newsroom, but I had not seen that coming! 

Another surprise followed when my wife and I bought our first house, only then discovering David and June lived just two blocks away. That led to David giving me rides to work on days my wife needed our car. He did this with a welcome smile, the drive becoming an extended work session as we discussed the news and went over what awaited us. 

That’s how we advanced through the next decade, David bringing a sense of calm to the newsroom with his comfortable work style and confident leadership. Our award-winning staff grew and shrank with the economy, I rose to second in command, and our technology slowly advanced from dummy terminals to Macintosh-enabled graphics to networked personal computers with growing internet capabilities. David applied a patient, personal hand in all these changes, which took center stage when the Oklahoma City Bombing devastated our building and operations. Although injured by the blast, with wounds that lingered the rest of his life, David personally made sure everyone in our newsroom was safe. I proved the biggest hindrance there, for I had stepped away to eat breakfast at Leadership Square, and thus I was two blocks south of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building when the bomb went off. That left me with a guilty feeling, for since I had not told David beforehand, he went back into our damaged offices looking for me. I soon found him on the sidewalk north of our wrecked building, awaiting EMS care for his wounds. I watched as he took time to provide interviews to some Tulsa journalists covering the disaster before allowing an ambulance to take him to the hospital. 

Missing a publication for the first time in our history, our newspaper staff gathered the next day at the Remington Park racetrack to hear our ownership discuss a general plan to restart operations. David coordinated how our newsroom would use temporary quarters provided by the University of Central Oklahoma and the Edmond Sun newspaper. David and I then re-entered our damaged offices to retrieve vital files before tackling that day’s edition. With David and David Tipton overseeing our news content, our staff put out a two-page edition on Day One, four pages on Day 2, and eight on Day 3. By Day 5, we had resumed full production. That’s when our staff entered temporary offices in an empty Oklahoma Tower floor, and that’s where we were almost a month later when we endured an even bigger shock: news that our longtime owner, Dan Hogan, had sold our paper to an upstart with ties to the Murdock organization. David applied his steady leadership to guide an uncertain staff through this unknown territory. We soon learned that new owner Jim Dolan had many ideas for advancing our publication, getting us near state-of-the-art tech systems while using the JR to build a national chain called Dolan Media. 

David balanced these editorial changes while taking a growing leadership role in Oklahoma’s Associated Press office, eventually spending a year as its president. By then Dolan Media had renovated the first two floors of one of Oklahoma City’s older towers to become our new home. Having a love of hard-hitting news, Jim dedicated the first floor to the newsroom, its outer walls lined with windows so that everyone could watch us work. From his corner office David led our paper in generating even more award-winning coverage of local business breakthroughs, legislative boondoggles, a devastating tornado, and 9/11. And from that corner David demonstrated how to patiently handle personal change as Dolan Media gave us a new managing editor, Ted Streuli, who became another friend. David remained patient and positive through all of this, embracing his new role while continuing to provide effective leadership through our evolving operations.

Not long after that I was asked to open a news bureau in Tulsa. Launched in November 2005, I ran that office for a decade, not seeing much of the Oklahoma City staff outside of monthly corporate meetings, but each time I visited or called, David always offered a welcome smile and a boisterous greeting. This continued until Dolan Media’s bankruptcy and reorganization closed my office in November 2015 – which proved the last act required before a white knight would lead the firm out from court protection. Equally dramatic change soon shook the Oklahoma City staff, although I didn’t experience it, since I had been severed with my office. Still, I suspect David’s optimism helped soothe its turbulence until 2020, when he took a long-deserved retirement. I did not get a chance to see this, but I’m sure he handled it with the same warmth and grace that marked the rest of his life.  

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That's where my speech ended. Here's a bit of bonus content: a paragraph about my first year at The Journal Record. This fell victim to a last-minute cut, for it was not about David, but I almost left it in for insights on the tech level the paper started at. Since my blog includes many autobiographical entries, I thought I’d include it here. You may insert it after the paragraph about June’s Journal Record work:

I was given a desk two seats from hers. Initially I shared one of our rather simple MycroTek word processing terminals with our legal reporter, but with her frequent needs, Max asked if I would adopt our Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 as my workstation. It was little more than a keyboard linked to an 8K word processor and an eight-line liquid-crystal screen, allowing you to see little more than a paragraph at a time. I doubt my eyesight today could handle that, but then I had no problems, and I appreciated the ability to take that portable “computer” out on assignment. So that three-pound precursor to today’s laptop soon became my main resource as reporters came and went through our other positions.