Quitting the Argus

The following column appears in Farewell Bend the novel. It is only slightly altered from what my father, Don Lynch, then editor of The Ontario Argus Observer, wrote it in the summer of 1957 when he separated from my mother. This chapter comes not as the end of the book, but it's close. -- Larry Lynch

The Argus Observes

“Sounds like you’ve got that cabin fever,” Charlie Ambrose said.
That was his response to this column at the end of February when I wrote about having lived in Farewell Bend for almost nine years, a longer period of time than I’d ever lived any place before. And, incidentally, a much longer time than I’d ever been on one job before.
At any rate, I’m taking another job, with the Statesman Newspapers in Boise. And even though I continue the same ownership in The Argus-Observer, what influence I exert will be by remote control.
This change was only possible because Mrs. Kavanagh was willing to assume the rather demanding job of being editor and publisher of The Argus-Observer. She assumes a role often filled by newspaper wives. Country editors often undertake another enterprise (usually writing or politics) while the wife runs the paper.
In this particular case, the wife is better qualified to manage the newspaper than she realizes. She has been close to its problems for a long time and has worked at all of the tasks required—reporting, advertising, and accounting. This is a broader background than my own because I didn’t do any of the accounting.
Because of her natural modesty, she thinks of the places where her knowledge is limited, fails to see how much she really knows about the problems of The Argus-Observer. Actually she knows a great deal, and she will be ably assisted.
Sam Farmer has been at The Argus-Observer for a year. He knows how to handle the advertising needs of our customers and how to deal with a great many general problems.
Terry Randle, although new, has made an excellent impression on many important news sources and has demonstrated that he knows how to develop the news unusually well.
Rupert Zimmerman, new as shop foreman, showed immediately that he was an excellent mechanical superintendent and printing supervisor and demonstrated as good a knowledge of commercial printing as any country printer I’ve ever seen.
New management often improves a venture -- in business, or government, or salesmanship, or education, or a newspaper.
Most of what I could do for The Argus-Observer has long since been done. I expect it to move ahead in some ways now that would never have developed if I stayed in direct control.
Actually, I am much less confident about how effective I will be in a larger newspaper operation. But that’s a different problem.
–—From The Argus-Observer, Aug. 23, 1956