A newsroom with personality

The view from 301 Broadway in Cape Girardeau has changed a lot over the past century. So have the faces and voices within.

From here the Southeast Missourian has published stories and pictures chronicling the evolution of our community. It's always been a community newspaper.

But the people who've written the stories and taken those pictures become more than just observers. Through their work, they become known, famous and in some cases infamous characters in our community play. Over the years there have been some real characters.

"I don't want to say we won't have those great writers or characters again, but the newspaper is different than it was," lamented former reporter Mary Spell.

Spell was the Family Living editor from 1974 to 1985. She, her co-workers and predecessors describe the Southeast Missourian newsroom of the first 70 years as place loud with activity: The clacking of manual typewriters, the constant clamoring of phones, the smell of ink and the revving of the press that was still on site. Most of all was the ever-present blue fog of cigar and cigarette smoke. The brand of smoke she and many former Missourian employees remember the most is that which rose from the cigar of photographer Garland D. Fronabarger.

G.D. "One-Shot" Fronabarger, a photographer and writer for the Southeast Missourian from 1927 to 1986, was usually seen chomping on a cigar.

"He was always chomping on that cigar," said former co-worker Ray Owen. G.D. Fronabarger's cigar, his trademark brimmed hat and the note pad that seemed attached to him made their home in the Missourian from 1927 to 1986.

"I believe he covered hangings," Owen quipped.

Although he started as a cub reporter and did a bit of writing throughout his career -- he is the father of the Missourian business column -- Fronabarger will always be remembered for his work as a photographer. Called "One-shot Frony" because of his frugality with the film he had to buy himself, Fronabarger holds a special place in the hearts of those who knew him.

Spell first met Fronabarger when he came to her school to take pictures.

"He'd point to me and say, 'You, little fat girl in the fourth row, pick your chin up,'" remembered Bell. "He was never one for formalities."

Indeed, Owen said Fronabarger refused to learn new reporters names until they'd been there for at least three years. He, himself, retired about four times before health problems kept him out of the newsroom for good. He died in 1992.

Ray Owen is a name Missourian reporters and readers alike have known well for the past 35 years.

Owen started out as one-man sports crew in 1967 and worked as city editor and business editor until retiring in 2002. Although not as overt as Fronabarger, Owen had his subtle eccentricities. One that was not so subtle was the old fishing hat he'd wear while filling ash trays at the sports desk.

Owen was so plugged into the sports scene of Southeast Missouri that people would call him at home in the middle of the night to get scores and settle barroom bets on local sports facts and lore.

Those late-night disturbances wouldn't last for long, though. After he married co-worker Sally Wright, those shenanigans ended.

Sally Wright came to the Southeast Missourian in 1969. During her 17-year tenure, she not only changed her last name to Wright Owen, but she served as society editor, Sunday editor and features editor. Former co-worker Gloria Davis remembers that Ray and Sally met and started courting while at the paper. She also recalls that they tried to keep it a secret, but said that in a newsroom there's no such thing as a secret.

Sally Owen -- now without the Wright -- said among secrets she learned while at the paper were how to catch typos reading copy backwards and upside down from the templates before they were printed and how to type and smoke at the same time.

She also learned that at that time, the staff of the Missourian was like an extended family.

"When a big story would break, everybody would pitch in and help out," Sally Owen said. "Reporters would each take a part of it."

Spell remembers one particular member of the Southeast Missourian staff member who exemplified that remark. Judy Crow worked for the paper from 1950 to 1984. Starting as a researcher and advertising proofreader, she is best remembered as a staff writer, theater reviewer and the paper's librarian.

"You'd be sitting at the typewriter having typed constantly for six hours and Judy would come over and knead your back with her tiny hands," Spell said.

Making this all the more remarkable was the fact that in addition to being petite, Crow suffered from cerebral palsy. The disease gave her a speech impediment that sometimes made her difficult to understand. But Crow's actions always spoke louder than her words.

"She was just a tiny thing, but she'd tear you limb from limb if you made a mistake in the paper," Spell said.

Current newspaper librarian Sharon Sanders learned her job under Crow when she first came to the Missourian in 1980. She said Crow had a fierce temper. When she got frustrated because of mistakes in the paper or someone not being able to understand her speech, Sanders said it was common to see and hear staplers, pens and erasers go flying through the newsroom. When she was moved into an office with windows, the heavier things were grounded.

But more often than being a battle zone, Sanders remembers Crow's office as a refuge where an understanding ear was ready to take in a reporters problems.

"She was good with people," Sanders said. "She'd take the time to listen to them. People could always vent in her office."

Editor John Blue's temper wasn't quite as loud as Crow's, though he shared her stern adherence to the laws of grammar.

When she worked under him in the '60s and '70s, Davis said, she could only tell he was getting angry when he started scratching his arms.

John Blue -- never "John," never "Mr. Blue," always "John Blue" -- started as a reporter in 1940 and worked for the Missourian until retirement in 1980. His former employees remember him as a no-nonsense guy.

"When you'd come into work, he'd have circled your mistakes in red and laid the copy under your typewriter or keyboard," Davis said. "He was a stickler for names and spelling."

But Davis said he was as likely to compliment a reporter as to correct them. She remembers him as a perfect gentleman.

Several of his former employees remember one instance in the 1970s when the Missourian had hired a female police reporter with strong feminist convictions. When that reporter came to work without a bra one day, her abashed boss John had another female employee tell her to go home and change. John Blue died 2001.

While John Blue was known by his full name, one of his more famous contemporaries, Cecelia Sonderman was known simply by her nickname "Skeets." Though no one seems to know why.

"Skeets" was a city government reporter for 27 years at the Southeast Missourian during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. She went on to become administrative assistant to the city manager of Cape Girardeau and later served two years on Cape Girardeau City Council. She died in 1998.

Other voices

As a liason between management and the reporters, the paper's editor has to have a strong voice. But over the years, the Southeast Missourian has had a few editors, like John Blue, whose voices have stood out among their peers.

From 1927 until his death in 1961, Juel Mosley had the last word as far as the paper went. In his obituary, he was remembered as being a keen observer of municipal affairs who kept a close watch on city government and its operations. His editorials frequently stimulated city projects, just as they did some community programs.

Other editors who have guided the newspaper include Allan Hinchey, Chester Letts, Joni Adams, Ken Newton and the current editor, Joe Sullivan.

John Ramey, a former city editor, did his talking mostly by example. During his time at the Southeast Missourian (1969-2002), Ramey built a reputation as not only a great editor but a fine reporter.

"He was by far the best investigative reporter that ever worked here," said Sally Owen.

John Blue's wife, Mary Blue, was also a fixture at the paper. She wrote regular columns on gardening and cooking. Her prowess in the latter paid off for Southeast Missourian employees who were lucky enough to get samples of her homemade cookies, butter bread and other baked treats when she'd bring them in. In her popular "Ladybug" column, Mary Blue let readers in on her personal reflections on life.

Another columnist that endeared herself to readers by opening up her own life was Jean Bell Mosley.

"She could blend words together that made you see it in your mind as she did," Spell said.

Through her column, "Joy Along the Way," and the handful of books she published along the way, Mosley shared her thoughts on nature. Mosley died in 2003.

As adept at the art of writing as Mosley was renowned to be, she spared no kind words when talking about fellow columnist Katherine Cochran.

"She certainly knew her craft," Mosley told the Southeast Missourian when Cochran died in 1995. "We all marveled at how she could do all this reference work and come up with a good column every week."

A writer, historian and artist, Cochran began writing for the Bulletin-Journal, the newspaper that merged with the Southeast Missourian in 1986, in 1964. Her column, "The River City of Cape Girardeau and Its Environs," contained stories about the history of Cape Girardeau and the area. Sanders said they were stories that put you into the places she wrote about.

"She did a lot for bring the history of Cape Girardeau to local people," Sanders said. Sanders also remembered in Cochran a petite woman who drove a hulking Buick to work every day.

"She wanted everyone to see a regal Southern lady," friend Judy Schuch said upon Cochran's death. "But she had a little spitfire in her."

Another columnist that had a bit of spitfire in her, especially when it came to grammar, was Aileen Lorberg.

In the 1980s and early '90s, Lorberg's "Lend Me Your Ear" column explained the difference between who and whom and the true meaning of the word "unique." Outside of her column-writing, Lorberg always called in on mistakes as they appeared in the paper.

In 1983, Lorberg's punctilious diligence was recognized on a national level when syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick referred to her in one of his columns as "keeper of the flame in matters grammatical." Lorberg died in 1998.

The photos and stories these journalists put out were more than just a product for public consumption. They were bits of dialogue between members of a common community. These newspaper people did more than report about the lives of their neighbors, they became part of them.