LETTERS: EARNING RESPECT FROM JOHN BLUE WAS WORTHY GOAL

To the editor:

My mother sent me a copy of John Blue's obituary, which made me think how much he influenced my life and career choices. John Blue hired me as an intern starting the morning after I graduated from Central High School in 1965.

I wasn't exactly a stranger to The Missourian before that summer. After all, I had been a paperboy starting at age 12. As a freshman at Central, I started writing letters to the editor, and John Blue would print them and provide feedback.

One afternoon, Ernie Chiles, my high school geology teacher, and I were on our way to the airport to shoot some aerial photos when an auto accident happened right in front of us. Without knowing why, my first instinct was to take pictures. The next morning, I was in John Blue's office with a stack of photographs. That afternoon, when I picked up my bundle of papers to deliver, two of my pictures were on the front page with my name under them. In the next day's mail was a check for $10. Fame and fortune. I was hooked on journalism.

I've worked for bigger newspapers, covered national stories and won more than my share of recognition, but John Blue is the man whose respect I always wanted to earn from the first time I walked into his newsroom.

This photo taken in 1965 is the editor I knew. When he peered over his glasses and looked out over the newsroom, you had better be hard at work. I'll miss him.

KEN STEINHOFF

West Palm Beach, Fla.