Yesterday I wrote about
college friends who teach us. I was privileged to have HS friends who taught me
how to grow up, too… such as Benny Albin and Principal Marlin Kell.
In a nice rectangular box
in the first issue of Oak Barks, the newspaper of my high school alma mater,
Oakland City, Indiana, for the 1951-52 school year, the top line reads:
REPORTER OF THE WEEK. The line below it has JOHN McFARLAND. That’s all. I have
looked carefully through all five years of the Oak Barks when I was on staff.
Only once did the paper name a reporter of the week, and it was I.
I’m sure it was because
Benny Albin was Editor that year and was trying to encourage his intrepid frosh
reporter, because he needed me. He knew I wanted to be a reporter for a real
newspaper and would do anything to get a byline.
It was the Student Council
that actually selected all the members of the Oak Barks staff, but there was a
rule of succession for editor. The Asst. Ed was always a Jr. who became editor
in his or her senior year. It was assumed that you needed a year of experience
to take on that particular job. My own rise in the Oak Barks ranks was not hurt
by the fact that I was class president for three years and thus always on the
Student Council.
Benny Albin was not only
my editor, but a mentor to me in many ways—not just journalism, but other
things as well, such as how to ask a girl for a date. Judging from the results,
he was a better newspaper mentor.
He encouraged me to write
a lot, not just reports, but columns—everything from “humor” to “better
living.” It has occurred to me only now that one of his
motivations--considering that I was a freshman and wrote like one, so surely
was not sought after either for writing skill or philosophical insights--was to
fill up empty leftover spaces in the paper come deadline time. Whenever we got
close to deadline, and the paper wasn’t really ready to roll, he’d say
something like, “McFarland, I need three more column inches to fill out this
page. Write something.” He knew I would not pass up a chance to get into print.
The result, though,
regardless of my cool and redoubtable editor’s motivations, was that I got a
lot of experience, valuable to me even if to no one else.
Since I was Editor my
senior year--until I turned 18 and found out Potter and Brumfield would pay me
a lot more than Oak Barks did, and made poor Peggy Hunt, the Asst. Ed at the
time, take over for me with almost no notice—I should have realized sooner how
editors groom eager younger journalists to fill up space against the deadline.
My junior year, whoever
typed up the list of the new Oak Barks staff used an abbreviated abbreviation
for positions, so that, for instance, I was listed as the Ass. Editor, along
with many other Ass. Positions. It was on the main bulletin for quite a long
time before Mr. Marlin Kell, our principal, heard about it. Then it wasn’t
there any longer.
He always suspected me
whenever anything like that happened. Most folks thought I was a “good” boy,
but Mr. Kell was hard to fool. He knew that playing with words was more
important to me than my reputation. Besides, my reputation as a “good” boy only
meant I was more popular with the mothers of girls than I was with the girls.
However, I could legitimately tell Mr. Kell that I had nothing to do with it,
and did not know who did, and I still don’t. Some mysteries are more fun if
they are never solved.
John Robert McFarland
“If I had to choose
between government and newspapers, I would not for a moment hesitate to choose
the latter.” Thomas Jefferson
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