With this week’s issue, “Thanks to YOU–subscribers, advertisers, readers and other loyal supporters—The Roanoke Tribune celebrates its 79th Anniversary since its humble beginning in 1939 in a section of the Claytor-owned building at Gilmer Avenue and Gainsboro Rd. in NW Roanoke. Our continued existence through the years–against all odds and obstacles-– and there have been some–has been through determination and the labor of LOVE!
As with any initial undertaking of such magnitude ours has been an uphill struggle for the most part being made much easier by the advent of computers and high technology.
Upon my graduation from Christiansburg Industrial Institute (CII) in 1944 at age 16, I offered my assistance(?) to daddy, but as it was neither encouraged nor wanted I decided to stay anyway to try to master his newest typesetter at the time, an old lynotype machine from The Roanoke Times that men from The Times helped us learn to operate (behind newspaper covered windows). It was after a “hot-lead squirt” covered my knee–and Daddy ran first to see if I had hurt his machine–that I decided to leave Roanoke and learn to operate it elsewhere. After scanning a map of the United States in an old encyclopedia, I selected Dayton, Ohio; not too far away and also a place I had never heard of anyone going or being. So, with my life’s savings (of $50), I decided to take the chance. What I hadn’t figured was that I would not be reimbursed for the $20 I had paid a piano tuner as I had not been authorized to do so. Thus began my determination to go where I could “learn how to help Daddy”-–whether he wanted it or not– he needed it.
Consequently, from experience garnered on newspapers in Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio; The New York Age in New York City, back to The Roanoke Tribune and The Vinton Booster in Vinton, I was able to gain enough experience to “keep The Tribune going; at least until someone more competent bought it or helped me keep it going until I learned to do it.
What was formally attributed to my “stubborn determination” has since, through my introduction to, and affiliation with the Baha’i Faith, given me a different perspective with entrance of “the LOVE factor” that I was totally unfamiliar with. It first caught my attention on a simple Christmas card depicting a little dog relaxing upon a huge snowball with his paws behind his head gazing up at the sky as the snow fell softly about him. The caption simply read, “LOVE! That’s what it’s all about!”
The point was further entrenched as I heard the Baha’i Hollow Reed Prayer for the first time which begins: “O God, make me a Hollow Reed from which the pith of self has been blown, that I may become a clear channel through which Thy love may flow to others…” Following such awakening, the first anniversary slogan under my watch was: “Because we love you, we care what you read.” Although the logo changes through the years, the principles have not, resulting in more specialized media.
With the changing of the guard during the summer of ’71 following my father’s auto accident, also came a change of mood as the newspaper shifted from being highly political to one with accent on servitude and a strong conviction that the Black Press should provide less thermometer media-–simply recording the (mostly bad) atmosphere surrounding it, and more thermostat media, setting that temperature!
We learn from history that we do not learn from history–that hate begets hate; war begets war–and peace begets peace–if we but give it a chance–through LOVE!
