She’s known to Josephine County folks for a variety of things: as a former Grants Pass city councilor; former reporter, editor and photographer at the Daily Courier; former reporter, editor and publisher for the Southern Oregon Weekly Review; former newsletter editor and public relations director for Smith Management and Rogue Music Theatre.

She’s about to add one more former to that list.

But, Margaret Bradford will be adding a lot of new adventures in her life as she retires after 24 years at Rogue Community College.

“I have big plans for retirement,” Bradford says, as she sits at her desk at the college, with pulled-apart paper chain links atop a nearby file cabinet, denoting the days recently gone by. A colleague gave her the paper chain weeks ago, and she has pulled one link off the chain each day, leaving only a few left on the chain, which is posted outside her office door. Her last day of work is Thursday.

“I love my job, but, it’s getting harder and harder to come to work,” she says with a laugh, adding, “I feel like I have a foot in both worlds and I’m ready to retire.”

Bradford’s retirement plans include a trip to Turkey in September and possibly teaching writing for six weeks, beginning in January, at Maya Jaguar High School, in Guatemala. The school is funded through a private foundation, Adopt-a-Village. Bradford is a member of the Rogue Gateway Rotary, which helps support the high school.

She’s also planning rafting trips; getting in a little reading; watching mysteries on PBS; and making plans with her husband, retired Umpqua Community College dean Greg Fishwick, to visit all of the baseball parks in America.

“He’s the baseball fan, I’m the travel fan,” she says.

That’s evident when she begins to list all of the exotic locations she has visited during her 62 years on the planet.

She’s been to Russia; Brazil; Costa Rica; Mexico; the Caribbean; Italy; German; and most of Europe, she says, adding, “Oh, and I took sailing lessons in Belize.”

It’s not surprising she enjoys water activities.

Bradford grew up in Redondo Beach, Calif., and graduated from Redondo Union High School in 1970. After that, she attended El Camino College in neighboring Torrance, Calif., and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism, with a minor in American history, from California State University in Long Beach.

As a child, Bradford always wanted to be a reporter. Her father was in the military, so she planned to go that same route and write for the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

However, as the country was at war in Vietnam when she graduated from high school, she says, she altered that plan, as, “I’d just as soon not get killed.”

After college, she decided to move to Wimer, as she had friends there.

“I met lots of great people there,” she says, adding that she first sold ads for the now-defunct Rogue River Sun and later went to work as a reporter for the editor of that paper and his wife, when they started the “Southern Oregon Weekly Review.”

In 1979, Bradford began writing for the Daily Courier, as education reporter. The legendary Harry Elliott was editor in chief back then, she recalls.

During her five years of reporting, she also covered city government and took photos. She later was assistant news editor and then, for two years, was lifestyles and entertainment editor.

When she moved to Oregon, her mother was thinking about retiring and Bradford suggested she help her widowed mom, Mary Bradford, find a rental home to purchase in the Grants Pass area. But, the elder Bradford said she’d rather move from Southern California immediately.

Mary Bradford, now 92 years old, began working for the Daily Courier in the library, which was then called the paper’s morgue. She retired at the age of 84.

Margaret Bradford’s sister, Jean Carroll, also followed her sister to Grants Pass and works for Southern Oregon Aspire.

About the time she left the Daily Courier, Margaret Bradford adopted a daughter, Leah VanDeWarker, who is now 28 and living in Redmond.

From 1989 to 1994, Bradford served on the Grants Pass City Council. She says she decided to run for political office because of her years covering city government for the newspaper.

“I’d hear decisions being made during council meetings, and I thought, ‘I would like to be making those decisions,'” she says.

She enjoyed serving in local government but was going through a divorce and wanted to spend more time with her daughter, who told her, “Mommy, I don’t want you to go to meetings all the time,” Bradford recalls.

In 1997, Bradford married Fishwick. The couple has a combined three adult children, including VanDeWarker, Shannon Evans and Julia Fishwick, and two grandchildren.

Bradford started work at RCC in 1990, as a public information assistant, and worked her way up to director of marketing and community relations by June 1998.

While at RCC, Bradford has made a positive impression on co-workers and those outside the college.

“Margaret is a hard worker, and always goes the extra mile,” says Carmen Sumner, who has worked with Bradford in the marketing and recruitment department for the past 2 1/2 years.

Sumner says Bradford has created successful marketing campaigns that resulted in strong community awareness and positive relationships.

Sumner also respects Bradford’s dedication to helping others though previous humanitarian endeavors, including water rehabilitation projects in Uganda and polio immunizations in Ethiopia, as well as her upcoming plans to teach in Guatemala.

In preparation for that project, Bradford refreshed her high school Spanish with three terms of that language at the college.

Education is important to Bradford, who earned a master’s degree in communications and journalism from the University of Oregon, in 1999, while working at RCC.

Bradford also has served on various community boards and committees, received numerous awards and volunteered as a public information officer with the American Red Cross at its Pensacola, Fla., headquarters during the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

In 2006, she received the Communicator of the Year award from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations, district No. 7.

Sumner says Bradford is not merely intelligent and informed. She has high standards for herself and others. And, she has a great sense of humor.

“She puts on a serious, proper, professional demeanor, and then makes unexpected, offhand comments I call ‘Margaretisms,'” Sumner says.

Reach reporter Ruth Longoria Kingsland at 541-474-3718 or rkingsland@thedailycourier.com