Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

JoAnne Poindexter researches a story in The Roanoke Times' library. "People don't know 90 percent of the good things she's done here," reporter Beth Macy said.

Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

JoAnne Poindexter (left) talks with features editor Kathy Lu during a planning session for this year's high school journalism workshop.

Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

"She has just quietly and carefully made the paper better all those years," retired reporter Mary Bishop said of JoAnne Poindexter, who is seen working on a story this month.

Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

"She's been a dose of reality, while at the same time providing a source of hope," former reporter Marvin Anderson said.

She just wanted a job.

And on Jan. 16, 1973, JoAnne Poindexter reported to work at The Roanoke Times.

She was 23, right out of journalism school, and had anything on her mind but breaking the color barrier by becoming the paper's first black reporter.

"I had four years of college, and I wanted to go to work."

She's still working -- for this week, anyway. Poindexter is retiring Friday after 35 years of covering the news. But the measure of her career hardly ends with the day she integrated the Times' reporting staff.

She became a bulldog of a reporter, and later the paper's first black editor.

She advised and mothered other young black staffers in the newsroom.

And she bridged the gap between a newspaper that for all its existence had largely ignored black Roanokers except when they were in trouble.

"I don't think she's ever thought, 'I can't do this, I can't be this, I can't go there, I can't live here because this is Roanoke and black folks don't do that,' " said Betsy Biesenbach, a friend and former co-worker.

"It's going to be a void," said Brenda Hale, a longtime activist and former president of the local NAACP chapter. "Who else can the community turn to? Because she's the type of person you can turn to for anything."

"She has been a gatekeeper," retired Times staffer Mary Bishop said. "She has just quietly and carefully made the paper better all those years."

'A hell of a reporter'

In 1967, the year Poindexter was a junior at William Fleming High School, one of the few civil rights marches in Roanoke took place -- a demonstration outside The Roanoke Times over a policy against publishing pictures of black brides.

The paper had a long and rather typical history of covering black people in largely unflattering ways.

The former JoAnne Enoch's parents preached respect for others, self-respect and sticking up for yourself.

She had been on the front lines of desegregation before. She was in the second integrated class at Monroe Junior High School, and the only black student in most of her classes.

She was one of two black students in the journalism school at Virginia Commonwealth University.

By 1973, the paper was trying to change its ways, but not everyone was on board, Poindexter said.

"You soon learned who to speak to and who not to."

She found a few open-minded colleagues, but there were still taunts, jokes and disregard.

The ugliest incident came at a news department Christmas party, when some members of the photo department picked up the hollowed-out watermelon centerpiece from their table and presented it to Poindexter in front of everyone.

To chuckle at this hackneyed race joke would be to hand over her dignity and invite more of the same. To express the anger roiling inside her would earn her the brand of "uppity black woman."

Instead, she quietly picked up the melon, crossed the room and returned it to the table it came from without a word.

Weeks later, she told the perpetrators, whom she wouldn't name, how mad she was. They apologized, she said.

JoAnne Poindexter

The Roanoke native, 58, was the first black reporter at The Roanoke Times when she started at the paper in 1973. She retires Friday.

• EDUCATION William Fleming High School; Virginia Commonwealth University
• MARITAL STATUS Widow, married for 32 years to veteran Roanoke Principal Richard Poindexter.
• CHILDREN Sons Erick Poindexter (27) and R. Michael Jr. (35) and his wife, Tonya.
• WHAT’S NEXT Will continue writing for the paper as a freelancer; plans to do some volunteer work

Soon, Poindexter found she had a mission. The world had to change, and the place Poindexter figured she could make a difference was in her own newsroom.

"She did it with diplomacy, but she would call the paper to task," recalled Melinda Payne, the Salem City planner, a former Roanoke Times staffer and longtime friend.

Back then, the paper still routinely identified criminals by race in stories. It was a challenge from Poindexter, Payne said, that led to a policy of mentioning race only when it was germane.

Payne became the second black news staffer in 1975.

She said Poindexter approached her immediately to make her feel welcome.

"She was a big sister, a good friend, a teacher, a counselor," Payne said.

"You know, girl," Payne recalled her saying, "it's just the world we happen to be in, but what we're doing, we're trying to help make a difference."

In the field, Poindexter said at first black and white people alike were surprised to find the paper had a black reporter.

"Black people thought I should write only what they wanted," she said.

White people were skeptical, so she had to work hard to get what she needed from them for a story.

"I think that's how I learned to be so persistent," she said.

"She was a hell of a reporter," recalled Rich Martin, a retired managing editor who had been the paper's city editor.

If there was a tough story to get, Martin said, he gave it to Poindexter.

Payne left the paper to work as a reporter for WDBJ (Channel 7) for two years, and she learned then how tenacious Poindexter could be. Once, a Roanoke city schoolteacher caused a stir by teaching the Bible in class, in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

The teacher was Payne's sister-in-law, but Poindexter got the scoop.

Mentor, bridge builder

Poindexter retires during a week that marks the 25th start of her most visible effort to bring minorities to journalism, The Roanoke Times' Minority Journalism Workshop.

She got the workshop rolling in 1983 at the request of newly arrived publisher Walter Rugaber.

High schoolers met local leaders, interviewed governors and other newsmakers, and saw a real newsroom at work.

At least a few of them have caught the fever.

Karen Belcher was in the inaugural workshop in 1983. Soon, she was hired as an obituary clerk. Since then she's moved up through the ranks at the paper and currently is administrative assistant to President and Publisher Debbie Meade. She counts Poindexter among her closest friends. "I call her Mama Jo," she said.

Terri Macklin, another workshop veteran, started at the paper as an editorial assistant in the news department, and is now an award-winning page designer.

Angelita Plemmer went on to be a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, then Roanoke's public information officer. She is now director of communications for the National Association of Attorneys General.

In 1984, Poindexter was named assistant editor of the paper's Neighbors sections, which specialized in community news. In 1989, she moved up to Neighbors editor.

Today, community news, now referred to as "hyper-local" coverage, is a hot topic at newspapers.

"JoAnne was an advocate of 'hyper-local' coverage long before it became the journalism buzzword it is today," Times Managing Editor Michael Stowe said.

She was ideal for community news, Martin said, because she understood Roanoke's neighborhoods and had connections and sources everywhere.

All along, Poindexter has continued to try to close the gap between the paper and its black readers.

Early in her career at the Times, reporter Beth Macy had trouble getting interviews about a new church starting up in a former crack house in a predominantly black Roanoke neighborhood.

Poindexter went with her to knock on the minister's door, vouched for Macy to the minister, whom she'd never met, and that changed everything, Macy said.

"She built a bridge for me that I wasn't getting across without her."

Bishop, the retired reporter, figures it must have been uncomfortable for Poindexter through the years, being the resident black reporter whom others turned to frequently.

Poindexter knew she was relied on that way, she said, but she put aside her feelings to help bring the paper and its readers together.

More work to be done

Sometimes, you stay so long in a job, you survive almost everybody who remembers what you've done and endured, who remembers when you were a young lion and not the quiet 58-year-old easing into retirement.

Today Poindexter is slowed by arthritis and a degenerative disc, but still sweet-faced and always smiling.

She returned to reporting several years ago, covering Bedford and Botetourt counties. These days, she writes mostly "soft" stories -- community-centered, feel-good stuff that bears little resemblance to the bulldog reporting she once did.

"People don't know 90 percent of the good things she's done here," Macy said.

Poindexter still has her chops for finding news, though.

In December, now-former reporter Marquita Brown was covering Salem when metro editor Dan Casey asked her to check out a tip that a fire marshal had shut down Lakeside Baptist Church's replica village Bethlehem Marketplace. The tip came from Poindexter.

Brown called church leaders, who were stunned that the paper had the news already. They'd only known about it for about an hour.

Poindexter continues to try to make young black staffers feel at home. She gives them her home number, tells them her story, invites them to church, cooks them dinner.

If Marvin Anderson, who came to the paper last summer and recently left, had problems, "I went straight to Miss JoAnne. ... She's been a dose of reality, while at the same time providing a source of hope."

Despite her efforts, and a series of company-initiated ones, Poindexter believes the newsroom could do better on race.

Thirty-five years after her hire, the news department has five black employees, including Poindexter. There are also about a half-dozen Hispanic or Asian newsroom staff members. The number of minorities has been higher in the past, and in fact The Roanoke Times has been cited as doing better at minority hiring than most papers of similar size.

A 2006 American Society of Newspaper Editors survey found the Times had the largest increase in minority staff among newspapers its size in the country, from 6 percent to 10.3 percent.

Still, Poindexter points out, decision-makers in the news department are almost exclusively white, which puts a limited perspective on what goes in the paper each day.

It's a problem management recognizes, and would like to change.

"We need to do better," said Stowe, the managing editor.

Like others, he recognizes the void Poindexter will leave in terms of connections to all segments of the community.

He said he's glad she'll still be writing for the paper as a freelancer.

Poindexter didn't plan to retire for another few years. A while back, she thought she'd retire at 55, to travel and relax with her husband, veteran Roanoke schoolteacher and principal Richard Poindexter. But then he died of cancer, and she came back to work.

She battled through her own health issues, and figured she'd retire at 60.

But then came a series of staff reductions at the Times and the paper was put up for sale by its parent company, Landmark Communications. Finally, two days after her 58th birthday, Poindexter found out that she had to retire by July 1 if she wanted to take advantage of Landmark's longtime policy of allowing retirees to enroll in the company's insurance plan.

Her other option was to keep working and hope that the paper's new owner would offer a similar benefit if she decided to retire early.

Once she made the commitment to retire, it was like a weight was lifted from her, she said.

She plans on doing some volunteer work, maybe working as a teacher's aide or doing some catering with her niece.

"First, I think I'm going to go home and see what it's like to sit down for a few days."

Memorable stories

JoAnne Poindexter says these are some of the stories she covered that stand out in her mind.

1978 Closing of Burrell Memorial Hospital: Its construction in 1955, paid in part by community fundraising, marked a milestone in a long struggle by Roanoke area blacks for quality health care.

1978-79 Capital murder trial of Major Henry Johnson Jr.,: Johnson Jr. was convicted of the execution-style shooting and robbery of his landlord, real estate agent John Gardner.

1984 Black Virginia, progress, poverty and paradox: A team of Roanoke Times reporters spent six months studying the status of black people in Virginia. The findings were presented in a series that included more than 30 stories.

Flood of 1985: The worst flood within the memory of most Roanokers took the lives of 10 people in the Roanoke Valley — eight of them by drowning.

1999 Dorothea Martin trial: The Botetourt County woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring with her boyfriend to kill her husband.