Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Godspeed; it's on to a new life
Elizabeth Strother
Recent columns
- Independent voice is silenced in merger
- TOP takes a hard knock
- Lagging on college access
- Alzheimer's drains minds and finances
From the RoundTable blog
I know a lot of readers out there think Karen Trout runs the editorial department here at the newspaper, and in a sense you are right.
Karen is the gatekeeper for letters to the editor, the person in the closest, most frequent contact with readers who are writers, who want to talk back when something in the paper catches their eye.
To the editorial staff, Karen is more than a trusted letters administrator. She's a hard-working team player, an organizational hawk of an office manager who brings order to chaos -- well, who tries mightily -- a slip of a woman who is 5-foot-1-inch of iron will. And a loyal friend.
Next week, she'll just be our friend.
This is by way of letting all of her friends among our readers know that, after 36 years of working at The Roanoke Times -- 25 of them in editorial -- Karen is retiring. She's far too young, at age 59. But she was among the 21 longtime employees at the newspaper who got a buyout offer last month. With some trepidation, she decided to accept.
I must say, for someone who agonized so long and hard, she has had a surprising spring in her step ever since.
Not that she doesn't care about you.
"I'm going to miss the letter writers," she tells me, "the ones I've been in contact with for 25 years.
"I've been fussed at a lot of times," she admits. It's the downside of working in such a fussy business. But, "I've made a lot of friends -- contacts, I guess -- over the years."
When Jack, her beloved husband of 30 years, had a string of battles with cancer, they somehow knew. "Several years ago, when he had operations, I had people give me Christmas presents who never had before, or after."
She's still doesn't know how, or even if, they knew of her distress. "But it was just like a form of encouragement for me, because of all that I'd been through that year."
Oh, she will miss you.
Still, she's feeling good about the prospect of having more time for Jack and the other focus of her daily life outside of work, Vinton Wesleyan, her church. Then there are the daughter and grandson in South Carolina. She'd like to see more of them. And her mother, who lives up the Shenandoah Valley and is in her 80s now. Karen will have more time to visit, be more available if she's needed to help.
And she'll be walking. No, not up the Valley but around her neighborhood and the mall.
When I head into the office around 9 in the morning, I often meet Karen headed out for a walk -- and lunch. I kid her about these three-hour lunch breaks, and we laugh. Karen has been at the office since 6:40, is taking a brisk 20-minute walk, then will eat her midday meal. She's up at 4:30 every day.
But why, you well might ask.
"I have my devotions before I come to work," she explains. "I have a devotional that I read every day and then I have some prayer time."
She hadn't planned to retire so young, and might look for other work eventually. "But I'm just taking some time off right now. I'd like to get more involved in my church.
"I do sing in the choir. For 20-some years -- however long I've been a Wesleyan -- I've been in the choir. Of course, they don't ask me to sing solos," she says, and a twinkle lights her eyes. "So does that tell you something?"
Only what I already know, that she always gives her best and is unassuming about the results.
Karen has been a steady hand in the department through four editorial page editors. As she puts it: "You get one trained, then there's another, and another, and another." And through it all, she's adapted to constant technological changes that have been stressful every step of the way.
"I guess technology is fine," she says. At last. She guesses about 85 percent of letters to the editor arrive by e-mail. "This probably is easier to do than what we did years ago. I guess we typed letters in the system." Yep. On paper that had to be set into type. It's hard to remember, though that was not so long ago.
She has shared more than the professional journey all these years in this little department. We've worried through health scares together, grieved family losses and celebrated life's joys.
"It's a very emotional time for me," she says, her eyes welling just an instant with tears. "This department has been my family for 25 years."
You can't retire from family, Karen. You're not rid of us yet.
Strother is a member of the editorial board of The Roanoke Times.
