May 13, 2008...10:00 am
We Have Met the Boss - He is One of Us
Whenever you get a new boss, you always wonder what’s coming. Not necessarily because you think he may be a monster or the enemy, but because he’s an unknown.
So Steve Buttry, who becomes Editor of The Gazette in June, stopped by the office Monday to have a look around, say hello and field some questions. He and his wife, Mimi, will be moving from the Reston, Va., area where he’s been training journalists in innovation, leadership, newsroom skills and ethics with the American Press Institute. He’s got 37 years of experience with newspapers beginning with the Evening Sentinel in Shenandoah, Iowa.
Yes, he’s one of us. An Iowan. And a newspaper guy.
Knowing a little bit about Iowa, I asked Steve who influenced him the most while growing up in Shenandoah - The Archie family (owners of that newspaper, Mid-America Publishing and The Iowan magazine at that time), the songbird Everly Brothers who spent some of their youth there or Chuck Offenburger, the saddle shoe wearing native son who became the longtime author of the ”Iowa Boy” column in the Des Moines Register.
Steve said the Archie family wasn’t really involved in the day-to-day operation of the paper while he was there. He said Offenburger helped get him his first job at the Register (Steve was there twice.) He said The Everly Brothers were before his time, although he did see them in concert once in Omaha. So it would be Offenburger. In fact, Chuck’s Web site has a piece written by Steve five years ago about being a newspaper stringer.
The Everly Brothers were before my time, too, overshadowed by The Beatles and the British Invasion.
Steve is 53. I’m 55. So there’s another thing we have in common - the same generation.
Steve is one of us. Welcome.
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