Remembering Wally

Wally loved email.

When he started at the Southeast Missourian in 1993, I was the lone "computer guy" and had been on staff for about 6 months. One of his first directives for me was to get the company an email system, which I did. We still use one of the ancestors of that program to this day.

I can only imagine how many emails Wally wrote over the years he worked here. I think a couple hundred thousand would be a conservative estimate.

His direct reports -- department heads at the Southeast Missourian and publishers throughout the Rust Communications family of newspapers -- always knew when Wally went on vacation. Their email inboxes were a lot less crowded.

Not that the emails from him ever really stopped thanks to his ever-present Blackberry. No, when he went on vacation the usual torrent just slowed to a trickle.

Email was his preferred form of work communication and the address book on his computer attests to it. While he had hundreds of contacts, maybe only 1 in 10 had a phone number associated to it. The vast majority had just an email address.

If there is one lesson I learned from Wally, it is this:

Don't say some thing about someone that you wouldn't say to his or hers face.

He especially applied this philosophy with emails. Anyone who worked for Wally quickly learned that anything sent to him would almost certainly be forwarded on to anyone else who was referenced in the email.

It was an effective philosophy. Those who were pussycats in person, but lions in email, quickly learned to be judicious with the written word when working with Wally.

Wally was also a master of the whirlwind business trip. I went with him on a couple of these outings, visiting other operations in our newspaper group where he felt my expertise was needed on-site.

He could cram a lot into a day trip.

On one of these excursions, we visited our office in Dyersburg, Tennessee followed by the one in Blytheville, Arkansas and capped it off by stopping at the Kennett, Missouri newspaper. We were still back in Cape by five that same day even though we had to drive in a torrential rainstorm during one leg of the journey.

And amazingly, we actually did work at each of those locations. They weren't just whistle-stops.

That was a testament to Wally's driving. Some less tactful persons might say he had a bit of lead foot. That was another lesson I learned from Wally. If I asked Wally how long it took to get somewhere, I usually added at least 15 minutes if I was the driver. I don't consider myself a slow driver, just not as fast as Wally.

Another road trip I took with Wally and two other managers was a two-day affair. We visited the newspapers in Fort Scott, Kansas and Nevada, Missouri where we stayed the night. The next morning we drove to the paper in Marshall, Missouri.

On our way back to Cape, Wally treated us to a Cardinal game in St. Louis. The Cards beat the Astros 6 to 5 coming from behind in the bottom of the ninth with two on and two out with Pujols doubling to deep left field.

It was a great game, definitely the best I've ever seen in person. And I was fortunate to share it with a great guy. I'm glad I had the opportunity to work for him and with him for the last 17 years.

I will miss him and his emails.

Wally Lage, my boss, co-worker and friend for the last 17 years, died in an accident last Thursday.