I generally like goodbyes. That’s the introvert in me. This one is different. You’ve read the news on the front. Big news is happening. Foley is a walking, talking, breathing institution and I don’t have enough history or ability to fully summarize what he and his family have done for the news business in Platte County, but I’ll address that shortly after I get my final column thoughts out.
This is the final Ponder the Thought. I started writing this column in 2001 in the Savannah Reporter. After selling that paper, Ivan gave me a runway to land my column itch. He said something like, “Why don’t you write your column for The Landmark?” I jumped on the chance, and it has been a great home for my musings for six or so years.
Over the years I’ve had readers that followed me from the Reporter, and I’ve always been grateful for those folks. They probably need mental health care, but I still appreciate them. I’ve picked up some new readers and lost more; I honestly get it.
I thank each of you that read anything I wrote over the years. It’s been one of the true pleasures of my life, but while today is officially my last day, I ran out of opinion steam some time back and glad to put down the proverbial pen. I suppose I reached an age where political discourse, opinion and pointing out irony just didn’t matter to me much anymore. I’ve developed a desire to be the old, quiet guy and hope I can accomplish that.
I hope my kids and/or grandkids or other ancestors look the columns up someday and wonder what was wrong with me. That would be fun.
I hope someone that has been around The Landmark and Platte County longer than me takes the time to recognize and summarize Foley. It’s an amazing story. Young man, still in high school. Parents are fully entrenched in news business, and they buy this Platte County paper when papers were still king. Then a few months after buying The Landmark, his father dies tragically as Ivan was starting his senior year in high school, and it changes the course of history for Ivan, his family and for Platte County news. Ivan was dispatched to The Landmark over the summer of 1982 to lend a hand. Young Ivan’s career path became a little less choice-oriented that day, I suppose, and he did something most would not. He embraced it, bettered the product and became a successful journalist and businessman as papers slowly morphed into completely different business models. Being a journalist and businessman are not two easy things to do at the same time, nearly impossible at times.
It should also be pointed out that he had help. He married right and has a wife and kids who helped him do those two things. Newspaper people spend most of their time celebrating other’s successes, sometimes to the detriment of their own people’s successes.
Foley wrote opinion that is and was bold and unforgiving that brought snickers and gasps from his readers and often brought the ire of public officials, but he did so without fear. That’s a whole lot harder than it looks. Every politician, group and government has social media pages to fight back now, yet Ivan never shied away from what he thought was right or what he thought needed reported. It’s a trait most of us don’t possess or have the backbone to support.
All that being said, I’ll miss the laugh out loud part of his columns. He’s a wordsmith and I like words and the people that use them creatively. A lasting legacy of successful business and journalistic effort will likely define his tenure but most of us will mostly miss the adolescent humor through his words and to me, both are worthwhile legacies.
I wish the new owners well. Give them a chance. Change can be refreshing. Some will enjoy the change, and some won’t, but it is, after all, the only thing that is constant.
(Guy Speckman cannot be reached. His Platte County Landmark term has expired)
