More than a century of Wallowa County history is recorded in the bound volumes of the Chieftain. Some of the guests at last week's "Office Hours" at the Chieftain got a chance to take a gander at the volumes. 

If you work in a newsroom, these are about the last words you want to hear at the start of the day:

“The news clerk is out today.”

It’s fair to say that the news clerk — usually assigned to sit in the front of the newsroom in order to deal with those pesky members of the public — is one of the unsung heroes of newspaper journalism.

So it is with a bit of heavy heart that I announce the retirement of the Chieftain’s news clerk and longtime office manager, Cheryl Jenkins.

In addition to being the first point of contact for the public in the Chieftain’s newsroom, Cheryl also was responsible for compiling some of the paper’s most popular features. “Out of the Past,” for example, our roundup of items from long-ago issues of the Chieftain, was her work, and she spent hours going through bound volumes of the paper from 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago to offer our weekly feature.

She also compiled our weekly calendar of events and the police log, two other well-read features.

And, of course, she seemed to know everyone who walked in through the front door.

”I believe this is the third time I’ve retired” from the Chieftain, Cheryl told me. “Maybe the fourth.” After a big retirement party to mark the first time, she said, her replacement went to lunch a week or so later and never came back. Cheryl was asked to return, and did so.

She originally came to Wallowa County from Eugene in 1991: “That almost makes me a native,” she joked.

”It’s been fun,” Cheryl said of her time with the Chieftain. “I’ve enjoyed it. It’s just a job where you never know what’s going to happen.”

Join me in wishing Cheryl a happy retirement. In the meantime, we’re searching for a replacement but haven’t filled the position yet. Cheryl will be a tough act to follow.

Meanwhile, careful readers of the Chieftain might have noticed a couple of new bylines in the paper over the last few weeks: Reporter Josh Rindfleisch has joined the staff of the Chieftain, where he joins Bill Bradshaw in the newsroom. Josh hails from Arco, Idaho, and graduated from Idaho State University with a degree in mass communication. He’s worked as a photojournalist for a TV station in Madison, Wisconsin, and also has worked at the Oregon Institute of Technology. His wife, Lexi, is a teacher at Joseph Charter School.

Josh said he and Lexi love life in Wallowa County thus far: “It reminds me of where I grew up,” he said.

Finally, give me a chance to introduce myself: I’m the interim editor of the Chieftain, working for a few months on a freelance basis to allow time for a comprehensive search for a full-time editor. Before setting off to carve out a career working as a freelance writer and editor, I worked for daily newsrooms for nearly 40 years, including stints as the editor of two papers in Oregon, the Albany Democrat-Herald and the Corvallis Gazette-Times. Before I came to Oregon, I worked at the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Montana, for 25 years — the last seven as editor.

Throughout my career, I always have believed that newspapers are essential to the communities they serve. Over the last two months, as I’ve learned more about the Chieftain and Wallowa County, that belief has been solidified. Just a glance at that wall of bound newspaper volumes stored at the Chieftain — editions that detail more than a century of the county’s history — tells you something about the close connection between this newspaper and the communities it serves. My intention is keep building on that connection, to tell the stories that make a difference to the residents of Wallowa County.

As always, my thanks go out to all the subscribers to the Chieftain for their support. We can’t do this work without you. And if you want to reach out to me, the best way to do so is at this email address: editor@wallowa.com.

———

Mike McInally is interim editor of the Chieftain.