Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Dan was there for 'God willing'

This from Dan Warner in Fort Myers, FL, who was there for “God Willing.”

I can flesh out a bit about Ron Kuhne tacking "God Willing " to the line about Sun rising tomorrow in the weather report.

I was city editor. Bill Schlemmer was ME and Ben Maidenburg was Editor/Publisher..

Schlemmer noticed the "God Willing" first and went nuts. He ordered me to fire Kuhne, which I did.

Ben was out of town and called in about 2 p.m. to ask
"What's up?"
"I just fired Kuhne," I said. '
"Why?" asked Ben.
I told him the story.
"I think that's pretty funny," said Ben. "Hire him back."
So I called Kuhne at home and told him to come back to work.

I am 68 and mostly retired, after editing The Eagle-Tribune in Mass for 29 years, running my own weeklies in Maine for five and teaching at Boston University for three..

Janet and I now live in Florida, 9932 Bella Vista Ct., Fort Myers, 33913. I write a column for about a dozen papers and work a couple days a week mentoring reporters at the Fort Myers News-Press.

Mostly, though, I boat and play golf.

Love the blog

dan warner

Daniel J. Warner
9932 Bella Vista Ct.
Fort Myers, FL 33913
1-239-225-1106 - home
1-239-826-5494 - cell
djwarner2@Yahoo.com.


Blogger Note: If you missed the original post about this, you definitely will want to go to the December archives and have your browser’s find feature search for Buffum. The hilarious post by Buffum was December 17 and titled “Buffum’s favorite story About a story.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I showed up at the Beacon Journal for a job interview in 1969, Ben Maidenburg talked to me about why I was fired by the Dayton Daily News. I told him “union activities.” Noting that I was at the Dayton paper for 9 years, then they rehired me from St. Petersburg for 2 more years, Ben concluded: “It must be their fault.” Ben said, “Pick a side. I don’t care which side. Just stick with that side.” Ben was responsible for organizing a Guild chapter at the BJ. He also was big on human reclamation projects. I owe him my career.

Then Ben called in Dan Warner, the managing editor, and told him to negotiate wages and hire me. Which Dan did. I was put under the ever-active wings of State Desk Editor Pat Englehart, perhaps the best editor I worked with in my 43 years on newspapers. Then Pat, Harry Liggett and I (Harry and I as assistant State Desk editors) formed the terrific triumvirate.

The rest is history.