Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

RENÉE SCHAFER HORTON

and CARLI BROSSEAU

news@tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson late Friday to stop the closure of the Tucson Citizen, which was announced by the Citizen’s owners early Friday.

The lawsuit said closing the Citizen stemmed from an agreement between Gannett and Lee Enterprises Inc., owner of the Arizona Daily Star, to eliminate competition and increase profits to both companies.

The case has been assigned to Judge Raner Collins, but Goddard said in a phone interview Friday night that his staff could not reach Collins to “express the urgency of the case.”

“Usually there is some district judge to handle emergency motions and we are trying to find one,” Goddard said. “But I’m not at all certain we will be able to find one; it is a small panel in Tucson.”

Kate Marymont, vice president of news for the Gannett Co. Inc., told Citizen employees Friday that the last print edition would be Saturday. Gannett will continue to run a “modified” Web site of daily commentary and opinion with a weekly insert of editorial content appearing in the Star, she said.

She said two people accepted positions with www.tucsoncitizen.com but declined to say how many staffers the Web site would eventually hire.

“That’s my starting point,” Marymont said.

A preliminary job description for those hired showed that the site would focus on the “watercooler buzz” of the day.

Staffers would likely link to other Web sites and blogs, offer an opinion and open the discussion to commenters in an online forum. The site would also incorporate social networking, the document showed.

The staff will be responsible for defining the Web site’s form, Marymont said. “I’ve left it to them.”

The recently launched Metromix entertainment hub will continue on a “provisional basis” only, Marymont said.

Gannett’s joint operating agreement with Lee Enterprises Inc. also will terminate Saturday, although the two companies will continue as business partners in Tucson Newspapers, a subsidiary that handles all noneditorial operations for both papers. The JOA has been in effect since 1940.

Under the arrangement, Gannett takes the unusual step of partnering with a newspaper publication in which it has no editorial say to retain its profit interest in the operation.

Lee and Gannett will continue to share equally in the operating costs and profits of Tucson Newspapers, also known as TNI Partners, just as they did with the JOA, CEO Mike Jameson said. TNI, though, will no longer receive the limited antitrust immunity offered JOAs under the Newspaper Preservation Act.

The 1970 act gives newspapers operating under a joint operating agreement an exemption from federal antitrust laws in the hopes of increasing editorial diversity in cities and towns.

The announcement brings to a close months of uncertainty for the paper. Gannett announced in January that it was offering the Citizen archives, Internet domain name and lists of subscribers and advertisers to potential buyers, but not its 50 percent share of the JOA. If no buyer came forward, it intended to close the paper March 21.

On March 17, Gannett delayed the closure, saying “viable” buyers had come forward. The paper has operated on a day-to-day basis since.

Marymont informed Citizen employees of the closure at 9:30 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after notifying interim Editor Jennifer Boice.

“This is not about the journalism,” Marymont said. “Do not in any way take this as a reflection on your journalism. You have done outstanding journalism for decades.”

Laid-off employees will receive a week’s pay for every year they’ve worked for the paper up to 26 weeks, with a two-week minimum.

Boice, who has worked at the Citizen for 25 years and was appointed interim editor in July, could not hold back tears when making the announcement

“It’s been a difficult time,” Boice said. “But it’s also been fun. We’ve had people, even when our time was limited, going all out on stories, doing an incredible job of keeping the newspaper not only going, but good. And I am really grateful to all the people here who have put forth their heart and soul and energy in letting us go out with our head held high.”

Goddard was informed of the Citizen’s pending closure when Stephen Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Co. and the final bidder in the sale, wrote a letter Friday morning asking Goddard to intervene.

“The Tucson Citizen has been systematically destroyed by its owners and I believe it remains a viable and popular newspaper in the community,” he wrote.

Goddard said Hadland’s request was compelling, especially after he spoke with Gannett representatives.

“Their lawyer was unable to tell me how the proposed Web site would serve Tucson as a separate editorial voice,” Goddard said. “We took action because there was nothing in front of us that indicated any commitment to a vigorous continuing presence for the Citizen in some form.”

Reached Friday at his Santa Monica office, Hadland said, “We were, we are and we remain a bona fide buyer. We made a substantial cash offer; we later amended the offer to close to half a million dollars and were told that nothing less than $800,000 would be acceptable.”

In addition, Hadland said, he was “amazed” that Gannett was shutting the printed paper and going to an online-only operation because during negotiations, “a printed edition was an absolute requirement of Gannett’s.”

“This is the biggest perversion of the Newspaper Preservation Act that I have ever witnessed,” said Hadland, who publishes five weekly papers in the Los Angeles area.

Goddard said the arrangement between Gannett and Lee did not, in his mind, “meet either the spirit or the intent of the (antitrust) exemption” granted through the federal act.

The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into the sale of the Citizen in February, when potential buyers told Justice representatives they were being told by Gannett’s sales broker that the Citizen wasn’t a good deal because Gannett wasn’t selling its interest in the JOA.

Marymont confirmed discussions with Justice were ongoing for the past month, but would not say Justice insisted on having a Web site instead of completely closing the Citizen’s presence in Tucson.

She said Gannett had not determined the length of commitment to the new Web site, and that there “is no legal document” saying the site has to remain operational for a certain time.

“In our conversations with the Justice Department, it was agreed that it was important we sustain a second voice in the community,” Marymont said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Friday that Justice “closed its investigation today and no enforcement action was taken.” She would give no further details.

National media experts had predicted the paper would never sell because, without the JOA, the Citizen was all loss and no profit.

Thus the paper appeared poised to be another casualty of a newspaper industry struggling to survive amid declining advertising revenue and Internet competition.

But the Citizen defied the odds, at least for a while, because of the federal investigation.

At least five people expressed interest in buying the Citizen. All decided against bidding when they couldn’t persuade Gannett to include the JOA in the sale.

The Citizen was started in 1870 as a weekly, the Arizona Citizen, preceding Arizona’s statehood. Its reporters were on the front lines covering everything from the raids of Pancho Villa to the first university-led space mission.

In its last two months, the paper reported on its own predicted demise.

“A newspaper doesn’t close, it dies, and the death leaves a hole in the community,” said Boice.

Judge may weigh in on print edition of Tucson Citizen

Continued from 2A

Other troubled newspapers

• Hearst Corp. printed the last edition of Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, on March 16, turning it into an Internet-only news outlet with 20 staff members, down from more than 150.

• E.W. Scripps Co. in February closed the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News, one of two daily newspapers in Denver.

• Employees of the San Francisco Chronicle were told in February to prepare for closure or massive layoffs.

• The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

• The Ann Arbor News announced in April it will close in July. In its place, the Web-based media company AnnArbor.com LLC will be launched, publishing continuously online and a print edition twice a week. About 272 employees remain at the News, and experts estimate that will fall to fewer than 50 for the Web venture.

Readers
THE FINAL EDITION

We have had the Tucson Citizen delivered since I got here in 1961. It has been my “wind down” source of pleasure after a day at work; my primary source of local print news those 48 years. Often I have seen stories not covered elsewhere.

The reporters are some of the best I’ve ever read. I am going to miss walking down the drive to get it every afternoon.

Earl Wettstein

I started getting the paper in 1989 and liked the afternoon. You read a lot of news today that you will see in the next day’s morning paper. I also like the comics in the Citizen which you do not see in the morning paper. The main reason I stayed with the afternoon paper is the comics.

My subscription runs through September. Will you be switching delivery to the morning paper or am I stuck without a paper? Az Daily Star needs to use the comics from the Citizen.

Joe Undzilo

The Tucson Citizen is an old friend that has come to our house for 50 years. It is with disappointment that I will say goodbye to an important part of my life.

The Citizen was full of things that I enjoyed. I am a Wildcat supporter, so I always checked the happenings. I am an educator, so I always follow what the schools are reporting. I never miss the comic page because the day isn’t complete without Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. Also, Cal Thomas is tops in my book, and I always read his editorials. Now, where will I be able to read his thoughts on a weekly basis?

There is so much that I will miss. And now I won’t have the help hints and suggestions for where to shop for meal preparations, since I always check the ads.

Thanks to all the many people who have made this paper possible for many years. May each of the employees continue their activities to provide papers under a new name somewhere. This is a sad goodbye for me and many others in the Tucson area.

Peggy Powell

I am so sad as I have been collecting the Citizen’s articles for all the special occasions in our lives, as I am sure many people around the city does. I know my mom saved her copy of the paper when Japan surrendered and I know the Historical Society has papers from the past as that is the perfect way to track our history. I have all the copies of the paper when my kids were born.

This is a sad time for the city to see this paper go away. It is over – what? – 100 years old?

I am so sad to see the Tucson Citizen close its doors – isn’t there something the community can do to make it not close?

Beki Quintero

Just wanted to tell you about my family’s experiences with the Citizen. Three years ago, I drove my miniature horses in the Rodeo Parade. The paper chose our picture to put on the front page of one of the interior sections. That was really fun for me.

The most exciting thing happened Sept. 11, 2004. That was my daughter’s wedding day. The paper chose to put her on the front page pictured in her wedding dress. They used her wedding as a symbol of life going on after the nation’s 9/11 tragic experience. That made the day extra special for her and all of our family.

I want to thank the Citizen for their service to our community.

Becky Blankenship

For 50 years, the Tucson Citizen has been my favorite after-dinner reading. I moved to Tucson in 1959 as a young bride and always treasured that after-dinner time of learning what was happening in my town, country and world. You covered everything from astronomy to the zoo. You entertained me and helped me decide where to shop. You published our family births, marriages, and obituaries. Thank you.

Ellen A. Frank

I have lived in Tucson since 1972. Even as a freshman at Sahuaro High School, my quiet joy each day was scooping up the afternoon newspaper in the driveway, filling a bowl with far more than a recommended serving of cheapo ice cream, and settling down on the couch for my comfort moment. Reading the Tucson Citizen has remained my moment all these years; somehow the rustling of the papers smooths away the frazzles of the day as no other. I cannot imagine filling the hollow space in my sense of well-being. Curling up with a faded morning paper as the afternoon sun tilts in through the western windows will seem, hmmm, tepid. Alas,

Christy Voelkel

I just can’t believe you will not be delivered to our house every day. You are a REAL local newspaper, the kind I cut up and send to my kids in North Carolina and Los Angeles almost every week. Gabrielle Fimbres has been a favorite of mine for years. She is intelligent and sensitive. We trust your food reviews and count on Steve Rivera and Anthony Gimino to be fair and fun. I even love Mark Kimble on the radio. Truth be told, except for Argus Hamilton, I will miss you all so much. Thank you for caring about our community for all these years. I can provide albondigas to any of you who would like to come by for interviewing coaching.

Gloria Alvillar

For the past 22 years, I have kept the history of the Tucson Children’s Museum by clipping news from our local papers and any other source that crossed my desk. By far, the scrapbooks show a far larger number of clippings from the Citizen. Even nicer, in my opinion, is frequently your paper would have interesting photographs of our events – undoubtedly these catch one’s eye faster than the print data. The Tucson Children’s Museum shall certainly miss your support for this unique museum.

Dr. Evelyn Carswell-Bing

Founder, Tucson Children’s Museum

When we first moved from California to Green Valley a little over five years ago, we researched which newspaper would be the best match for us – for news, editorials – and the comic section. The comic section was the big swing vote! So, even though we both enjoy reading the newspaper first thing in the morning, we easily adjusted to “saving” the afternoon Tucson Citizen until the next morning.

We have since grown to appreciate the articles by Anne T. Denogean (straight talk), Anthony Gimino (thoughtful and educational sports insight), and Ryn Gargulinski (about-town humor) as well as the efforts by all the staff to improve the newspaper and keep it going. We will miss you!

Bob and Lois Hallinan

I learned to read by my father reading the Citizen to me, showing me the pictures and reading the captions underneath.

I got my comics habit, which lasts to this day, by reading the Saturday funnies.

While there is something good to be said about reading various newspapers online, that will never replace the actual, physical version of those papers.

First thing I do when visiting another city is to pick up a copy of their newspaper.

There is no better source to aid in finding out what’s going on in that city than their newspaper.

The Citizen is responsible for all that.

Robert Diedrich

I was a paperboy for the Tucson Daily Citizen, and I am showing my age by proudly admitting it, in the early ’70s.

It was my first job and I still have fond memories of gathering at the “drop” site at a friend’s house in midtown Tucson. There we met, folded and bagged the papers, and were off. I, on a red Schwinn, complete with baskets, purchased from Kittle’s Bike Shop. Rain or shine, or dogs, the Citizen had to be delivered . . . and it was. We were also responsible for the Sunday Arizona Star and I must thank my mom for her invaluable help and car on some of those cold, dark mornings.

The job afforded my friends and I extra pocket money for the essentials of the day. Cinnamon toothpicks, “clackers,” 8 tracks, saladitos, and mix and match sodas from Pleasure Time.

It will truly be a sad day for Tucson should the Citizen go the way of Marshall KGUN, Jácome’s and Bob’s Big Boy on Speedway. Besides, the Citizen was always a better read than The Star.

Sincerely,

Michael G. Ciaccio

I can’t tell you how disappointed my family is that the Tucson Citizen will be closing down after having been in business for so many years. We much prefer the Tucson Citizen to the AZ Daily Star for local news and information on upcoming events in town. The articles have been wonderful and interesting and the photography is so stunning on some articles that I’ve saved many of them in a scrapbook to show out-of-town visitors so they can get a feel for Tucson.

I hope that if the Tucson Citizen really is going to be closed down that the AZ Daily Star will incorporate sections of the Citizen into their (very skinny these days) newspaper and give some of the employees of the Tucson Citizen jobs!

This just seems to me like another example of Tucson not appreciating what is has got going for it and so far as articles I’ve recently read about Web readers putting other newspapers out of business, all I can say is there is nothing like sitting down at the kitchen table in the morning with your coffee (or tea) and reading a real newspaper.

A very disappointed Tucson Citizen reader,

Jan McKeighen

Years ago the Tucson Daily Citizen featured a weekly children’s crossword puzzle called “Citizen Charlie.” Upon completion of the puzzle, one would then mail it as an entry for a weekly drawing.

As many times as I tried, my winning a drawing just didn’t occur. Regardless, the process of doing the crossword with the anticipation of winning a prize gave me enjoyment.

Thank you Citizen Charlie!

Tim O’Connor

Per your request for memories of the Citizen, I can tell you many. In the late ’40s and into the mid-1950s, I sold the paper at the corner of Speedway and Park. The paper was 10 cents a copy then and I spent many afternoons yelling: “Get your Tucson Daily Citizen right here. Just 10 cents a copy. Get the paper right here.”

My very best memory of the Citizen happened in the mid-1950s. I was fortunate enough to attend the Triangle Ranch Camp through the YMCA and was there for many years, first, as a camper, then as kitchen help to our great chef Tommy Hudson. Then after a 2-year run in the kitchen, I was promoted to a tent counselor by Mr. Chick Hawkins. Chick Hawkins was the “y” and chief of Triangle Y Ranch Camp.

During one of the many summers spent at the camp outside of Oracle, a reporter and a photographer from the Citizen came to camp to do a story and take pictures of it. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the boys to show an archery layout. I was pretty good at archery at the time and the Citizen made me the happiest alive. My picture was on the front page of the paper. With my bow and arrow at the ready to shoot at the target. WOW! The front page demonstrating archery. I am now 65 years old and have forgotten a lot over the years, but I will never forget that evening paper and I was on the front page.

Many thanks for giving me those memories and I am so very sorry to see the demise of the Tucson Daily Citizen.

Thank You,

Curt Melton

The impending demise of the Tucson Citizen tolls a note of sadness for many of us who have benefited from its place in our community. This longstanding, historic periodical offered a forum for the presentation of news and other items of a local bent. More than any other publication in this town, the Citizen encouraged its readers to contribute from their hearts and their pens.

It was quite by accident (thanks to a rather inept carrier of the morning paper) that we even developed a relationship with the Citizen – one that sustained us for over 30 years. Just 10 years ago (Thanksgiving 1998), I submitted my first contribution in the form of a guest opinion eulogizing our friend George Moffat, a Tucson businessman and singer who had recently passed away.

Subsequent articles I was motivated to write included pieces on the National WWII Memorial and the Greatest Generation, eulogies commemorating the lives and contributions of Rudy Thompson, O.M. Hartsell, Rex Redhouse and Maggie Dixon as well as articles praising the giving spirit of high school students who collected items for our troops in Iraq. From a selfish standpoint, favorite musings included Flag Day tributes to my dad and an article I wrote reminiscing about my 35 years as a student and teacher at Sahuaro High School.

The Citizen published numerous letters to the editor that allowed me to express my opinion on matters of personal interest and concern. Most especially, we will cherish the Tucson Citizen articles that chronicled our two boys’ athletic and academic endeavors, their graduation and wedding announcements, and other features that revealed programs in which my wife, Joan, and I have been involved.

Thankfully, the Citizen provided an outlet for me, and others, to engage in a hobby away from our normal professions. To all those who have filled the pages of our evening newspaper with provocative, heartwarming and challenging verbiage I offer a sincere word of thanks and best wishes for the future.

Dr. David Ashcraft

For many years, there was no other paper in town, so far as I was concerned, and Don Schellie’s column was one of my favorites. So, when a copy came that said it would reveal “The Thing,” which was then featured at a roadside attraction near Willcox, I could hardly wait, the next night, for that paper to come. I had always been curious about The Thing but my (then) husband would never stop, even though we had gone past it a number of times. Of course, many people gave me descriptions of what it was. One guy even said it was Hitler’s old Volkswagen.

So, I was eagerly waiting for that copy of the Citizen to arrive. But instead of a picture of The Thing, there was nothing but a full page of black ink! Boy! Was I disappointed! So disappointed that I wrote a letter to Don Schellie telling him about my page of black ink. I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when, one evening, I read a front-page teaser that said “Sorry Dodie”! The front of Section B included my letter plus a picture of the real Thing. I have still never seen The Thing in person, even though my husband, Curt, and I later lived in Willcox for a number of years. We went past that attraction hundreds of times – usually at night after it had closed. But, at least, I knew what it was.

I truly mourned Don’s passing, and really missed one of my favorite Citizen features.

It was great to have my 15 minutes of fame.

Dolores D. (Dodie Leifheit) Melton

It was February of 1947 when my parents, with me and my toddler brother, moved from Albuquerque to Tucson.

We moved into a brand-new home on East Lee Street, three blocks east of Country Club.

El Rancho Shopping Center didn’t exist yet; neither did Catalina High School.

“Karl” delivered the Citizen on horseback! The size of the Citizen allowed you to “fold and tuck” it into a square of about 8 inches to 10 inches – and that baby could fly! Failure to “porch” your deliveries was inexcusable!

Good memories? Oh yeah. Am I going to miss “my” Citizen? You better believe it!

Chuck Putney

The Tucson Citizen has been a guest in our home since we landed in Tucson. I remember the early Citizen, the one before the Gannett purchase. The date of that purchase, I do not recall; however, I didn’t notice the violent lurch to the “left” until the summer of 2004. However, this is a time for fond remembrances.

As we recount these miles gone by, it was very much appreciated the coverage our high schools received. Spotlight game of the week (football) profiled on Thursday, great coverage on Friday and then the write-up on Saturday. We so looked forward to that and read the coverage, even when we (CDO) lost. I still have some of the articles.

Why? you wonder!! Don’t we all clip and save when our children are mentioned and lauded? Oh yea!!!

Corky was a must read. Always positive and wrote in a way that we felt we knew him. One of his most memorable columns was about his daughter who had been diagnosed with cancer. Such a beautiful and heartfelt column. Thank you, Corky. We miss you.

Jeff Smith. Some of his columns were laugh-out-loud funny, especially those written during his first stint at the Citizen. The columns he wrote while recuperating from his horrible accident were not humorous, but were informative. Jeff, here’s hoping this finds you well and practicing your trade with gusto.

Such gifts Corky and Jeff are blessed with. Both of you have been sorely missed.

Mark Kimble, another gifted writer. The columns I choose to remember are the ones he wrote about his family and growing up in Tucson. However, the one he wrote about the loss of his brother was chilling and heartwrenching. Tragic.

I hope many of you were treated to the remembrances of Mr. Roy Drachman. The Citizen did itself proud when those columns were run. I eagerly awaited each installment. Mr. Drachman brought the Old Pueblo alive as only one who could have lived those days so very long ago when Tucson and Mr. Drachman, et al., were young.

Don Schellie (RIP). Such a talent and gone much too soon. His columns were terrific, as were he and his family.

I’ve bloviated enough, but you invited us to write; therefore, I have.

In summary, before the summer of 2004, the Citizen was a welcome guest in our home. Since that summer, so much of the time it felt like an intruder.

Thank you and all kinds of good luck to each and every one of you.

Helen Nicola

Never in my 66 years of life have I formed a true relationship with my newspaper, like I have the Tucson Citizen.

Only living here in Tucson for four years, however, I am still so saddened to hear that it will be discontinued very soon.

This paper appears to be much more conservative than your morning paper, and I will have to find something good about your alternative.

But I will never find a cartoon more enjoyed than BUCKLES. I always felt so happy to see this cartoon as he is exactly (with expressions and all!) my own dog. I would even cut the cartoon out for other dog lovers, as these series exemplify our family dogs being a real part of our families.

So very sad to see you go

Lyn & John Kilian

I moved to Tucson in 1975. I liked getting the afternoon paper so I read the Citizen. Losing the Citizen is like so many things that have made Tucson home for me.

One of them is kind of a combination of Tucson Citizen and the Tucson Toros. This has special meaning and memories for me as back in April of 1978 I took my 4-year-old daughter, Christina, to a Toros game. When I got to Hi Corbett field, a guy took Christina’s picture. The guy asked my name and I thought no more about it. The next day my mother-in-law called to tell us that Christina’s picture was on the front page of the Citizen. It sure made our day.

Thank you guys for being here all those years.

Allen P. Stark

Continued from 4A

Citizen was part of readers’ lives

Citizen Staff Writer
Farewell

GABRIELLE FIMBRES

When I was a child, there was little love in our family for journalists.

My grandfather, a federal judge in Tucson, spoke of newspaper reporters who botched the facts, or twisted them to fit the story.

When I told Grandpa that I yearned to be a journalist, he did a pretty good job disguising what must have been disappointment. He loved us so much and would never have discouraged our dreams.

I knew from the time I started my “Dear Gabby” column in the student newspaper at St. Michael’s Parish Day School that I wanted to be a journalist.

I wanted to tell people’s stories.

I walked into the Citizen newsroom Jan. 7, 1985, as a journalism student at the University of Arizona.

I knew I was home.

The image of the adrenaline-charged editors jumping up from the news desk to yell “Stop the presses,” still brings a shiver.

My early days were spent filing photo negatives and answering phones. Then I became a real reporter. I covered cops and courts. I covered Mexico. I wrote breaking news and in-depth projects. I was doing what I dreamed of, telling the stories of people in the city I was born and raised in, the city my ancestors lived and died in.

I became assistant city editor, and later assistant features editor.

Then came the babies. After becoming a mom, I worked out a deal that allowed me to work part-time, mostly from home. I wrote about fetal alcohol syndrome. I wrote about drug-addicted parents. I wrote about violent children.

They are unforgettable, these stories of a lifetime.

There was the elderly woman, dressed in black and clutching rosary beads as she prayed at the base of a mountain of rubble in the heart of Mexico City.

Her daughter’s family lived in a high rise that tumbled during an early morning earthquake that left more than 10,000 dead. She prayed for a miracle that somehow her family had escaped.

It was a miracle that never came.

There was the hulking, blind man with mental illness who was led shuffling and shackled into the courtroom after voices in his head told him to kill his mother, whom he said had inflicted cruelty upon him for decades.

There was a young woman with all her possessions piled into an abandoned shopping cart as she headed to a shelter after completing rehab. Free from methamphetamine after a 13-year addiction, she was starting a new life for her and her boys.

There were the heroes, too many to count.

Gail Leland was the first hero I met along the way. Her 14-year-old son Richard was murdered in 1981, and his killer was never caught.

Gail and her best friend, Gloria Fritz, helped others going through their same hell. Gloria’s adorable 7-year-old daughter, Cathy, was murdered in 1982.

The two moms sat in their living rooms and talked with other parents who had lost children to murder. Today, 27 years later, Gail continues her mission, always missing her friend, Gloria, who died from cancer in 2000. Through Parents of Murdered Children and now Homicide Survivors, Gail has helped thousands of Tucsonans devastated by the murder of a loved one.

There was quiet rancher Jim Corbett, who was prosecuted for helping Salvadorans fleeing violence in their homeland. He offered food and shelter to the tormented.

There was Teresa Kellerman, who 31 years ago adopted John, a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome. What started as a mom advocating for services for her son led to Teresa educating people around the globe about the permanent brain damage caused when a pregnant woman drinks alcohol.

There were Laura and Bill Henderson. When Laura said her prayers at night, she would ask God to let her live long enough to see her grandsons into adulthood. The couple, in their 70s and 80s, were helping with homework, packing lunches and carting kids around after the boys’ parents could not care for them.

The Hendersons were among thousands of Tucson grandparents left to raise children, usually when parents are lost to addiction, incarceration, mental illness or death. They found help and a family at the KARE Family Center in Tucson.

There was Mark Loebe, a young man struggling to figure out who he was. He had pieced together his past, one in which he was so terribly beaten as an infant that he nearly died.

But he survived, and was adopted. Mark dreams of someday becoming a dad. For now, he helps other youngsters who have been abused.

They are the stories that live in my heart, and in the Tucson Citizen archives. I am forever grateful to those who shared their lives with me.

It has been a privilege to write about the city I love so dearly. I am thankful for my grandfather, my parents, my brother, my husband and my three children for all their love and support, as well as my incredible Citizen family.

I hope I made you proud, Grandpa.

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

Citizen Staff Report

Arizona Citizen is born

Oct. 15, 1870

The first edition of the Arizona Citizen, then a weekly, rolls off the press. The first issue notes that a pair of valuable mules and a horse had been stolen from a ranch within sight of the city, and that sweet potatoes were selling here for 20 cents a pound.

When the paper debuts, the Civil War has been over for just five years and Arizona won’t become a state for another 42 years.

Camp Grant Massacre

April 30, 1871

Just before dawn, a group from Tucson shoot, stab and bludgeon to death more than 100 Apache men, women and children camped near Winkelman about 65 miles northeast of Tucson. The Citizen’s report notes the raid was in ‘self-defence’ because four settlers had been slain and stock stolen in the San Pedro Valley. But the killings provoke outrage across the United States. At a murder trial, all of the participants are acquitted.

The railroad arrives

March 20, 1880

“There was rejoicing in Arizona last night,” the Citizen reports on the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which would bring a wider variety of goods to Tucson – and at far cheaper prices – than by stagecoach.

“The iron horse panted into Tucson and with its neigh gave notice that a new order of things was about to be established.”

Shootout at the OK Corral

Oct. 26, 1881

The Citizen says the shootout between the Earps and the Clantons “will always be remembered as one of the crimson days in the annals of Tombstone . . . the bloodiest and deadliest street fight that has ever occurred in the Territory.’

Wyatt Earp kills Stillwell

March 1882

Earp suspected Frank Stillwell of killing his brother Morgan in Tombstone a few days earlier. He and “Doc” Holliday track Stillwell down near the downtown train depot and shoot him.

Ground broken for UA

Oct. 27, 1887

The Territorial Legislature appropriates $25,000 to help start the territory’s first university. But the money doesn’t cover the land purchase. The city is about to return the money when two gamblers and a saloonkeeper step forward and donate the land. Classes begin in 1891 with 32 students.

Arizona becomes 48th state

February 14, 1912

President Taft signs the proclamation making Arizona a state.

The Citizen reports that when a dispatch from the White House arrived with the news, Tucson greeted it “with an an outburst of whistles and bells.” The paper says the demonstration was as great as when the railroad first arrived in Tucson.

Lindbergh visits Tucson

Sept. 23, 1927

Thousands gather to greet the “Lone Eagle,” flier Charles Lindbergh, and his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, who months earlier became the first to fly solo across the Atlantic, speaks at the University of Arizona and helps dedicate Davis-Monthan Airfield.

Dillinger gang captured

Jan. 26, 1934

Tucson police capture desperado John Dillinger and six gang members without firing a shot. Members of the gang had been staying at the Hotel Congress, where some of them were recognized when a fire forced the evacuation of the hotel. Dillinger himself is captured in a residential neighborhood a few blocks northeast of downtown. Dillinger, who eventually escapes, dies a few months later when he is gunned down outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago.

Raytheon’s ancestor

Feb. 2, 1951

Calif.-based Hughes Tools, owned by the reclusive Howard Hughes, announces plans for a plant in Tucson that will eventually employ as many as 10,000 people. The operation, now owned by Raytheon, is the city’s largest private employer.

Jet hits supermarket

Dec. 8, 1967

It was called a miracle when just four people died after an Air Force F-4D jet fighter crashed into the Food City supermarket at 1830 S. Alvernon Way.

Tucson celebrates 200

Aug. 20, 1975

Residents mark the 1775 founding of the Tucson presidio by Capt. Hugo O’Conor, an Irish mercenary working for the Spanish crown. It is the first European settlement in what is now Tucson, but the area had been inhabited for thousands of years by Native Americans.

IBM plans new plant

Oct. 12, 1977

The plant, located on the Southeast Side, opens in May 1978, with as many as 5,000 employees predicted. Ten years later, IBM announces it will cut 2,800 jobs there. The plant site is now also home to the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park.

Inferno claims Old Tucson

April 25, 1995

Fire destroys three-fourths of the movie studio and Western theme park, which had been a site for numerous Western films since 1939. The cause of the fire is never determined, although arson is suspected.

CAP water arrives

November 1992

Tucsonans get their first taste of Central Arizona Project water after the final link in the 336-mile-long project from the Colorado River is completed. The delivery means Tucson will no longer have to depend solely on its rapidly shrinking supply of groundwater. But many Tucsonans complain about the taste and the water’s corrosive effect on appliances. Delivery is halted while those problems are solved.

Wildcats win NCAA basketball title

April 1997

The University of Arizona Wildcats beat Kentucky in overtime for the school’s first national title in men’s basketball. The Cats become the first team to defeat three No. 1 seeds on the way to the title. Although the Wildcats had won national titles in baseball, the basketball championship brings attention on UA sports to a new level.

After the game, thousands of fans converge on Fourth Avenue to celebrate the win.

Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

MARK KIMBLE

bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com

I can’t complain. It was a good run. There aren’t many people who have the opportunity to do what they truly love and to do it in one place for 34 years.

That’s how my career went at the Tucson Citizen – from Dec. 16, 1974, until May 15, 2009.

Some of you I will miss. Others, not so much.

At the top of the “miss” list are the people I work with. The job has been fun mostly because the people have been fun.

These pages wouldn’t be here without Billie Stanton. She’s to my right today, but in reality, she isn’t to the right of anyone. She’s impassioned and would right every wrong in the world if she had the time.

In the four months since we first were threatened with closure, we’ve know that there are a lot of people who care.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas was one of the first to call and say he was thinking of us. There also have been legislators and former legislators, City Council members and former council members and many others.

But what touched me most were the kind notes from those of you I have never met. Most offered words of support and said how much they will miss us.

Typical was a comment left online yesterday by a reader I know only as rubysky: “I hope the staffers are OK. These are our neighbors and fellow citizens.”

Others had different concerns.

I was slightly hurt when one caller was more concerned about Brenda Starr’s future than mine. How, the reader wondered, would she be able to keep up with the red-haired reporter?

I resisted telling her that Brenda was fictional and I was real and she should be a little more concerned about my future.

Oh, well. Good luck, Brenda.

I also won’t miss those people who have called or e-mailed almost every day over the past four months to point at something in the paper they didn’t like, saying, “This story is why you are closing.”

Some said it’s because we’re too liberal, some say it’s because we run too many conservative Cal Thomas screeds.

One even said we were gonna close because we ran a short story on Martha Stewart’s puppy being accidentally killed in a kennel.

I actually think the reasons were bigger than that, but who knows?

I also won’t miss the guy who called every Feb. 6 to castigate us for not running a front-page story reminding people it was Ronald Reagan’s birthday. And what would the second sentence of the story have been?

It’s been fun, this journalism business. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

Contact Mark Kimble at mskimble@cox.net.

Freelance
Farewell

LARRY COX

This is a sad time for newspapers. It is also a sad time for me.

Since losing a newspaper is much like a death in the family, the fact that the Tucson Citizen is ceasing publication has left me with a feeling of crippling loss. Within a day or two of the first announcement in February, I found myself in denial, the first of five stages of grief as outlined in “On Death and Dying,” the 1969 bestseller by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

I told myself that this could not be happening, because belts were tightened and there had been assurances by Gannett that the paper was safe after the latest round of cuts. My denial was quickly followed by anger, a red, hot rage. How could corporate America be so heartless?

Even though my pain was deep, I wasn’t alone in feeling such despair. One afternoon as I left the paper, I saw a colleague in the parking lot, crying. Nothing I could ever say would lessen the pain that we both felt. As I drove home that afternoon, I wondered if corporate executives ever think about the impact their decisions have on people? Profits are important but what about the cost in human terms of the people who make those profits possible?

As time marched on, I found myself playing out various scenarios in my head. Perhaps, if the skeleton staff at the Tucson Citizen worked a little harder, or if a buyer could be found, maybe, just maybe, the paper could be saved. Not even I believed that.

A week or two later, the depression I had deepened even further when I read a sampling of hateful postings from our readers who seemed jubilant the paper was on life support and probably would not survive. Why do some people feed on the calamity of others? What joy is there when people lose their jobs and possibly their homes? It was shortly after that when I realized I didn’t care anymore. Maybe closing the paper was for the best.

Gallows humor was one of the last stages I experienced and then came acceptance.

When the last issue of the paper rolls off the presses, I have prepared myself emotionally for whatever happens. Nevertheless, there remains an empty feeling, and I am sad.

Memory can be comforting, especially during difficult times. I originally arrived on the doorstep of the Tucson Citizen because of a promise I had made to myself years before. I vowed I would never work for either a person or a company I didn’t respect.

After being treated rather shabbily at another publication in Tucson, I quit. Because I love writing and it is an important part of my life, my next move was to meet with Michael Chihak, the editor and publisher of the Tucson Citizen. After a brief conversation that lasted no more than five minutes, I was hired one autumn day in 2002. I agreed to write two weekly columns that would continue until Michael no longer found they fit the paper or I decided the work was no longer fun. That was the totality of our agreement. We shook hands and I began my work as a columnist at Arizona’s oldest daily newspaper.

For the last seven years, I have had more than just fun working for the paper. The friends I have made there will continue to be my friends even though the paper that brought us together will soon be nothing more than microfilm and dusty clips.

I love newspapers. I get excited when I hear the crackle of police radios, hear a reporter doing a telephone interview, or see the latest issues hot off the presses. What made the Tucson Citizen so extraordinary was the sense of family that existed in the newsroom. Simply put, the Tucson Citizen is and was a special place and it will always be so in my heart and memory.

Because this isn’t a perfect world, there are things that I won’t miss. At the top of my list are the mean-spirited anonymous comments posted by what I hope are a small minority of our readers. More often than not, the comments are vile and racist and have no place in a civilized society.

Even topping those comments is a personal e-mail that I received several years ago. After reading one of my book reviews, a woman called me a “liberal pus-sucking pig.” As if that wasn’t enough, she ended her little poison pen message by saying that she hoped I died of cancer. If she had wanted a bull’s-eye hit, she got it. I received this message just three days after I had returned to Arizona from burying my mother in Arkansas. Mom died after three terrible years fighting cancer. I consider myself a strong person but I remember even now how I wept after reading that hateful e-mail.

This finally brings me to the end.

Goodbyes are never easy and I hate saying them. I’ve had to say too many of them in my lifetime. There are so many things I could say and so many people I should thank but, as the closing of this proud old newspaper has taught me, there is never enough time.

I am sad.

Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

JOHN MOREDICH

jmoredich@tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona outfielder Hunter Pace easily could have moped and complained, and even left the team because of the lack of playing time.

But he didn’t. He stuck around for three years, sitting behind T.J. Steele, who was a fourth-round selection in the Major League Baseball draft a year ago.

Pace, who graduates with a regional development degree, will start his last home series when the Wildcats play Washington at Sancet Stadium at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Pac-10 series runs through Monday.

“Hunter Pace is the reason why I enjoy coaching,” UA coach Andy Lopez said.

Pace is one of four seniors playing their last home series, joining pitchers Preston Guilmet and Cory Burns, and outfielder Brad Glenn.

Pace was a standout at Chandler Hamilton High. But Steele took over the center field position and became one of the top outfielders in the country.

“Unfortunately T.J. had to come in the same year, but it was good for me,” Pace said. “I learned a lot from watching T.J. and the way he went about his business.”

Pace wasn’t bad, having been a 28th-round draft choice out of high school.

He just didn’t get too many chances. He had only 83 at bats entering this season.

Pace is making the most of his final season. A starter this year, he’s second on the team with a .369 average, and second in stolen bases with 13.

“It has been rewarding to finally see all the time you put in and the extra work paying off,” Pace said. “At the same time you have to stay hungry and stay humble so nobody else passes you up.”

A couple of times Pace met with Lopez about playing time. He wanted to know what had to happen in order for him to play.

“They were never the kind (of meetings) where he leaves and you say, ‘What a jerk,’ ” Lopez said. “I have always respected the way he has handled that. There is not a guy in this program who would say a bad thing about that guy.”

Senior Pace waited his turn, made the most of his chance

UA BASEBALL

Washington (23-25, 12-9) at Arizona (25-23, 8-13)

Saturday: 7 p.m.

Sunday: 6 p.m.

Monday: noon

> At Sancet Stadium, 1290 AM

THE FINAL EDITION

JEFF SMITH

Once upon a town there was a time when folks around there had a pretty good idea what was up.

The town was Tucson and the time was the tail end of the 19th century through the better part of the 20th. Better indeed.

The folks knew up from sideways because – if they bestirred themselves to waddle onto the front lawn – they could pick up a hometown newspaper where they could read all about it.

The Tucson Citizen and the Arizona Daily Star had decidedly differing views. A grammar school dropout could tell which was which three grafs into their editorial pages – but they shared a fundamentalist approach to reporting those events:

You let the participants do the talking and the paper do the typing. The editorial page chewed the fat. News-side eschewed it.

The trick to maintaining incivility was for one paper to break a different story, or a different angle, when they could leave the competition looking asleep at the wheel.

What nobody did fiddle with was the facts, because then as now a small hometown like Tucson could tell when local coverage flunked the smell test.

You might run a story datelined Afghanistan and it might have a scent of barnyard here or there and you might get away with it, but a hometown paper better have the hometown news fair and square.

I am of the educated opinion, however, that even in these perilous times for print, an honest hometown paper that remembers its roots, and has the publisher to protect them, will survive.

The Citizen came first, in the last trimester of the 19th century, when all it had to fight was Apaches and politicians. Then the Arizona Daily Star hit the streets and the battle was joined.

As a mercenary whose checks have been signed by the publishers of both, from 1968 until the curtain came down on 2007, I’m here to tell you it was the kind of ride that keeps otherwise intelligent professionals working like short-handled hoers for money that would make a school teacher weep.

But we had the pride of knowing we were keeping the people up to date and armed with facts when the high and mighty were armed with sophistry.

My first encounter with hometown journalism was as an 8-year-old pal of Donald Thornton, son of Vic, managing editor of the Star. On weekends Donald and I would wander into the old Star/Citizen building on Stone Avenue and listen to the editors argue about whether Art Luppino was the best tailback in the country or just a fast frog in a slow pond. (For the record, Art was the greatest running back ever. You can read it spelled out in my scrapbook, in raw umber.)

In those days the Star was owned by the Ellinwoods and Matthews. The Citizen belonged to the Smalls. Those days were the ’50s. By the ’60s the feds had targeted Tucson newspapers in an antitrust action, which we were spared when the Failing Newspapers Act allowed the papers to keep publishing, leaving the housekeeping to a third party we still know as Tucson Newspapers Inc.

And they all lived happily ever after. Until the owners of the Star tried to sell but found no takers except a small-time outfit named Brush-Moore. So the Citizen’s owners, Bill and Bill Small, father and son, bought the Star, with the pledge to keep out of its internal affairs and find a decent buyer. Which it appeared it had – Pulitzer sounds like a decent newspaper name – until the wife of a Pulitzer made it a matter, for me at least, of quit or get fired.

Upon which my own purely personal opinion of selling a hometown newspaper to out-of-town interests experienced an epiphany. It blows.

So I began my career at the stupid end of a shovel.

A white knight rode to my rescue, in the person of William A. Small the younger. (Let me share this apology across the void to Bill: Scouts’ honor, Boss, when I referred to you as Bill Small the Lesser, it was an allusion to Homer’s Iliad, in which he identified Ajax the Lesser, thus to distinguish him as his father’s son. Not by any means to disparage you, or Ajax.)

Because in November 1976 I went to work for a hometown newspaper at the zenith of its powers. And circulation. The Citizen made money and spent money. It spent money to make money: I read somewhere that’s how smart money does it.

A veritable Ku Klux Klan of factors conspired to drive what was once a rabbit warren of glad-hearted hustle – curiosity inspiring phone calls, calls inspiring car keys, keys taking reporters all over Arizona, northern Mexico, to hell and gone and back again, in time to fill out our expense vouchers and then home for the weekend and gone again next Monday.

Bill Small did not bitch about the money spent to cover the on-beat and off-beat: He did the math and read the English, which sang of profitability.

There was money to be made in a hometown paper – one that made readers laugh and cuss and look forward to the next edition.

For Small it bought a newspaper sufficiently profitable that when he decided to spend his days pursuing the muse instead of news, his Citizen caught the eye of the biggest newspaper chain on the planet, the Gannett Co., of all the factors conspiring to stamp out hometown newspapers, the Mother Factor.

So after two blissful years working for an enlightened, penny- and pound-wise publisher, I thought, “Poop.”

And I was right. If Gannett allows this to see print it will be the most liberal editorial decision I have seen in three decades under the aegis of the people who brought us USA TODAY . . . and converted every hometown newspaper it could buy into one of its clones.

Old newspapermen joke that a good reporter could cover the Second Coming of Christ in 13 column inches. But a good feature writer could create a novella, and a good newspaper would dummy the room to run it.

My brother Dave wrote a feature on a kid from Mesa who walked into a beauty parlor, made five women lie face-down on the floor and then calmly shot each in the back of the head. The story ran roughly the length of a Louis L’Amour novel. It jumped from Page One of the Los Angeles Times Sunday edition all the way to the back, and then jumped from the back to the front again, turned around and ran until it ran out.

The Times got one of the best days of street sales in its history. The kid got life in Florence, and my brother got a VW vanload of Best of Whatever awards.

It was the kind of story Gannett never would even consider, not if every woman the kid murdered were every subscriber’s mother, daughter, sister or aunt; if the kid were every reader’s adopted son, and the town were home to the chief executive officer of Gannett. Maybe that’s a good thing, a savvy decision, but it is not the sort of policy that endears it to the antiquarian species that reads its paper on the porcelain pedestal of a morning.

Gannett ran an ad campaign for the Citizen a few years ago featuring a chorus of elevator-tenors chiming “. . . the Citizen is Tucson.” I had my doubts then, and as Gannett smothers Tucson’s oldest, once-hometown paper, like some bothersome bed-ridden uncle, I don’t think the Citizen is Tucson anymore.

Gannett sent one of its aparatchiki to announce the execution to the crew, lest they hear it first from the Star. There were people there – friends of mine, guys who have fired me three, maybe four times – who’ve put in 40 years or better at that newspaper. And this suit from east of the Potomac lacks the decency even to thank them for their toil.

He was here to announce a successful hit, by an assassin with a long string of successful hits. Hit men don’t fly across a continent to thank the family and friends of the departed; they come to put the stink-eye on anybody who looks like he might make trouble.

The emissary just didn’t get enough stink on everybody. Pray that you live long enough to see the hometown newspaper make its inevitable comeback.

Jeff Smith is only mostly dead. Much like his muse . . .

THE FINAL EDITION

CORKY SIMPSON

The parade’s gone by. No more trumpets. No more drums. No hoofbeats, no streamers.

And the hush of the street is overwhelming.

The death of a newspaper is very much the end of a living, breathing soul. And there’s never been one quite as unique as the Tucson Citizen.

Years from now when you tell young people what the Citizen was like, remember this: It had a heartbeat.

It was the harvest, the milling and the preparation of ideas by people of character, most of whom were characters. They gave the paper its heart, its spirit and its blemishes.

Some had swagger, and over the years many had stagger.

We’ve been peopled by saints and sinners, wise men and flim-flammers and in the old days, a few fall-down drunks who always got up in time to put the old gal to bed.

We’ve had Daniel Boone characters who talked like Jed Clampett and wrote like Stephen Vincent Benet.

We’ve had stutterers who sounded like Mortimer Snerd but had a mind like Carl Sagan.

And there were the legends.

Ted Craig was a gifted editor and writer, but his real talent was the telling of tall tales. Well, that and sizing down human monuments to arrogance.

Ted was a fine athlete, though he didn’t exactly look the part. He was an outstanding golfer because he hit the ball so straight, no matter what club he used.

He also played a good game of tennis and was known to pack the most potent “grapefruit juice” ever tasted in his Thermos bottle.

Phil Hamilton was an Okie. I mean, he dripped Okie. He lived in my part of town and gave me a ride one day after I’d left my old Ford with Bill the mechanic at Palo Verde Automotive out on East 22nd Street.

“Cain’t have a body out in this heat, footback a’ walkin,’ ” Hamilton drawled.

Phil did everything. Reported, edited, wrote a column, covered politics, read copy, wrote headlines. And he was superb.

Bob Campbell was one of the funniest men who ever lived. Our liaison with the back shop when we actually had a back shop, Bob occasionally came to work late – and always had a story to tell to start off the day.

Such as the time, around Halloween, when Campbell announced he knew exactly how many people had come to his house to trick or treat – even though Bob wasn’t at home.

“I went to the bank and got 20 shiny new silver dollars,” he said, “and I spread them out on a card table in my front yard. When I got home, every one of them was gone, so I know conclusively, that there were 20 trick-or-treaters.”

Stu Robertson was a copy editor who occasionally nodded off late in the day. One afternoon he had a cigarette between two fingers and he had that hand on his forehead as he drifted into dreamland – and set his hair on fire.

Micheline Keating wrote the most beautiful movie reviews you’ve ever read. Somebody told me “Mike” had been a friend of the famous writer-poet Dorothy Parker, known for her wit and wisecracks.

John Jennings may not have been the best storyteller on the old Citizen staff, but he could imitate storytellers in such a way that he outdid their talent. Just recently we laid our beloved “J.J.” to rest.

There were so many characters. Such as the guy on the copy desk way back when, who came to the Citizen out of rehab and who thought he was Humphrey Bogart. Had the lisp, the voice and the mannerisms. Unfortunately, he didn’t have Lauren Bacall.

For nearly 140 years the Citizen brought you news from around the community, the state, nation and world. Through war and peace, famine and times of plenty. From the frontier of territorial days through statehood.

Not just anyone can do this job and do it right. Not even trained journalists. Especially trained journalists!

It takes newspaper people, some of whose personal flaws over the years somehow enabled them to create professional refinement.

The awards, the prizes, the hardware from corporate honchos were just trinkets. The Citizen’s real honor was a decoration of the heart – hardworking professionals doing their best to give Tucson its best news coverage and presentation.

Now the little paper at Park and Irvington has been given its summons to join the innumerable once-upon-a-time caravan.

When you remember the time this city had two newspapers competing – and making each other better – don’t think of this one as the loser.

The loser is the community. Tucson has lost an essential voice, living, breathing, ink-stained history recorded by the finest, most competent and dedicated ding-a-lings on Earth.

Things happened, news broke and time passed away. So, now, has the Tucson Citizen.

The parade’s gone by.

Corky Simpson is a retired sportswriter who graced our pages regularly from Labor Day 1974 to Dec. 22, 2006.

Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

JOHN MOREDICH

jmoredich@tucsoncitizen.com

For a while, my friends blamed me instead of Dick Tomey, John Mackovic or Mike Stoops for the Arizona football program’s demise.

From 2001 to 2007, Arizona went 26-53 after I took over the beat job in the third game of 2001. Finally, I got to cover a bowl game when UA went 8-5 in 2008.

Here are two of my top memories:

• In 2004, the UA baseball team traveled to play Long Beach State in a super-regional with little hope against pitcher Jered Weaver and the 49ers. Weaver struck out 12 Wildcats, but UA won the opener 6-5 on a Trevor Crowe triple. UA lost the second game, but won the deciding contest in the 11th on a Nick Hundley sacrifice fly.

The good news was I got to cover a College World Series, but my family wasn’t too happy. We had to cancel a vacation.

• In 2003, the one Friday night I decided to go to a movie for a rare date with my wife, there were 11 messages waiting for me on my cell phone.

Had the world come to an end?

It turned out to be news of Mackovic banning several players from the team dinner the night before a game. Forty-eight hours later, he was history and UA started a coaching search.

Following tips and Internet rumors became a 24-hour job. One name kept popping up: Mike Stoops.

Although Stoops wouldn’t confirm his interest in the job, I was able to get the first interview with him. You could tell he would be UA’s next coach.

I’m glad I didn’t have to cover a coaching change last year. Despite what some might think, reporters don’t like to write about firings and buyouts. We’d rather write about touchdowns.

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

James “Jimbo” Krakowiak, 56

Print supervisor

37 years at TNI, 15 printing the Tucson Citizen

“Everyone calls me Jimbo,” says Krakowiak, who is deaf and attended the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind. He worked in ASDB’s print shop as a student and discovered “that’s what I wanted to do.”

He started working for the newspaper company as an apprentice when the Citizen was located downtown and the paper was printed on a letter press with lead “plates” that weighed about 40 pounds each.

Now, the printing is done by digital computing; the aluminum plates are slim and weigh about 1 ounce. He worked the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift.

Krakowiak has been a pressroom supervisor for more than 20 years and the pressmen have learned to use sign language, gestures and facial expressions to communicate.

“He’s an awesome pressman,” said Tim Torres, who accompanied him to Detroit in 1995 to run the presses there during a strike.

Krakowiak said he’s sad the Citizen is closing.

L.G. Ward, 60

Pressman

30 years at TNI, 5 printing the Citizen

“It took me 24 years to get on the Citizen and five years later, they’re taking it away from me,” Ward says. “It’s like losing a relative.”

He works the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift. The Citizen was off the presses by 9 a.m., he said.

The remainder of his work day is spent printing sections of the Arizona Daily Star.

Ward started in printing working for a business forms company and got the TNI job through a softball team buddy who recruited him for the team and to TNI.

Ward said the automation of the printing system has made pressmen’s jobs much easier.

Colored inks were loaded onto the presses manually, through hoses and by the bucket. Now the inks are stored a floor below and move through hoses and onto the press.

Also, instead of the toggle switches used to adjust the paper while the presses roll, adjustments occur at the press of a button.

“You don’t just come in and figure it out in one day,” he said.

Bill Navarette, 59

40 years at TNI, 11 years printing the Citizen

Navarette started learning the printing business at Pueblo High School and worked for a local printer, printing the Arizona Daily Wildcat while he was still in high school.

He came to TNI in 1968 and had to learn to adapt to a computerized press when the newspaper moved to 4850 S. Park Ave. and a digital operation.

When the presses began to roll 35 years ago, they printed 1,000 papers a minute.

A 1-ton roll of newsprint is good for about 20,000 copies of the Tucson Citizen. Navarette moves the newsprint onto a trolley, which moves on a track to the presses and loads automatically.

“It’s like I’m losing a friend,” he said about the Citizen closing.

“It doesn’t seem possible. It won’t hit me until I won’t see it anymore.”

Tim Torres, 52

Pressman

25 years at TNI, 2 years printing the Tucson Citizen

Torres remembers his first day as a printing apprentice as “nerve-wracking.”

He had “the first day jitters, like with any job you go into. You don’t want to mess up.”

Since then, Torres has worked as a press operator, foreman and supervisor.

He’s printed both the Arizona Daily Star on the night shift and the Tucson Citizen on the day shift.

Torres enjoys his co-workers.

“The people make it interesting and I have fun on the job,” he said.

Like his co-workers, he said he’s sad to see the Citizen shut down.

Artie Gonzales,

ex-compositor, now a dispatch driver, 37 years at TNI, on the Citizen and Arizona Daily Star

“The Citizen was an icon,” Gonzales said. “I grew up here and used to deliver it when I was in sixth or seventh grade. His after-school route near Tucson High and Roskruge Elementary schools started at around 3:30 and took him about 45 minutes.

When he started at TNI, the paper’s pages were composed with hand-set “hot” lead type and the pages had to be read upside down and backward.

Now the pages are composed on a computer screen, a negative of the page is made and transferred to an aluminum page or “plate.”

It was fun in the old days, Gonzales said.

He’ll miss the editors he worked with in the “back shop.”

“I’ve known these guys for more than 25 years. It’s gonna hurt. You grew up knowing them, joking around with them, telling them stories. The fun’s gone now.”

Gonzales said the end of the Citizen makes him wonder what’s next for him.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” he said.

Tay Bell, 49

Newspaper hawker, 10 years

Bell is an Army Special Forces veteran with a steel plate in his head from a four-wheeler accident. He would rather work than collect disability, he said.

He’s been selling the Tucson Citizen and the morning paper for 10 years at intersections in the county, north and northwest of Tucson city limits.

He’s worked for years with fellow hawkers Manuel Garcia, 53, and “Mo,” who always wore a Stetson and a crisply ironed shirt with his jeans and cowboy boots.

In March, Bell said, Mo told him he was done with selling the newspaper and going off to California to be with family.

“He has an aortic aneurysm,” Bell said. He came by to say goodbye.

The other member of their trio, Garcia, 53, used to work the same intersection at another corner.

Garcia, who had polio and whose legs are bent nearly 60 degrees, stood for seven hours a day, like they did.

But in November, Bell said, a Pima County sheriff’s deputy asked to see their IDs.

Garcia, who came to Tucson in 1990 from Mexico City, didn’t have any and the deputy called the Border Patrol, Bell said. A Border Patrol agent picked Garcia up at his bus stop and Bell presumes he was deported to Mexico. He hasn’t seen him or heard from him since.

Bell said his best tip was $165 from an older man who simply pressed the bills into his hand as he drove by, without a word.

Bell said he will be sorry to see the Citizen stop publishing.

“I’ve always been one to read the Citizen,” he said. “If I read the paper, I read the Citizen.”

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

One of the funniest things that ever happened to me was when I met the Dalai Lama.

After the press conference he walked straight over to me, pinched both cheeks and asked me in a whisper, “Are you from Mexico?”

I responded, “NO, I’m from Arizona.” He then whispered something else in my ear.

As I looked around I noticed every camera in the room had turned on me. I made every newscast. My family in Casa Grande even saw it.

When a reporter pulled me aside and said, “Oh, my God, you must be blessed. What did the Dalai Lama say to you?”

I responded, “He said I was the darkest Mexican he ever saw.”

FRANCISCO MEDINA

Photographer

It’s odd for the “highlights” of my career to be marked by tragedies. Major news events on deadline put a journalist to the test – the times you look back on and marvel at how so much got done in so little time and how well it was done. I can see exactly what I was doing at work when the first shuttle blew up, when the tragedy in Bhopal was revealed, when students were killed at Columbine, when we went to war in Iraq and, of course, on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember so clearly saying, “Paul, did you see that (Associated Press) bulletin that a plane flew into the World Trade Center?”

Despite 24-plus years of cynicism and deadline pressure for nearly every working hour of every working day, I’m going to miss the whole thing.

Newsrooms are odd places. They are places where daily discussions – of grammar and design, politics and current events – involve everyone within earshot and we never agree.

Journalists are odd creatures, many overflowing with sarcasm, cynicism and vitriol. I love them!

MJ McVAY

Designer

Citizen Staff Writer
THE FINAL EDITION

“Aaron passes Ruth!”

“Nixon resigns!”

Those headlines helped me sell a lot of newspapers in 1974, when my journey with the Tucson Citizen began as an 11-year-old hawker. Wearing my “Citizen Charlie” smock, I pitched the paper – which cost 15 cents back then – in front of my father’s East Side liquor store.

In between begging for tips, I pored over the sports section. I studied box scores and Citizen writers such as Regis McAuley, Corky Simpson, Jack Rickard and Bruce Johnston.

The newspaper bug had bitten me.

I took journalism at Catalina High School under J.G. Carlton, and began calling in prep box scores to the Citizen for $3 a game. By the time I landed a correspondent’s job in 1980, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Except for a five-year stint at USA TODAY, I worked many different jobs and many crazy hours at the Citizen until Gannett announced our closure.

Some of my favorite memories:

• High school: Sahuaro quarterback Rodney Peete threw for a then-state record 424 yards and five touchdowns in 1983 against Amphi. It ended in a 34-34 tie but was the greatest game I ever reported. Amphi countered with 361 yards on the ground in a contest that saw three TDs and one field goal scored in the final 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

• College: After covering Sean Elliott for three years at Cholla High, I watched him break Lew Alcindor’s Pac-10 career scoring record in 1989. Elliott needed 34 points and scored 35 – with six 3-pointers. It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard McKale Center, and we had a special section printed after UA routed UCLA.

• Pro: Curt Schilling sprayed champagne on me and other reporters in the locker room after the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees to win the 2001 World Series. When Luis Gonzalez singled in the winning run, strangers began hugging in the aisles at Bank One Ballpark.

• Embarrassing: On a hot night, I fainted in the elevator at Arizona Stadium during UA’s 1986 football home opener vs. Houston. When I came to, then-sports information director Butch Henry stood over me, asking in his Arkansas drawl, “Is he dead?”

• Initiation: Two Cleveland Indians players, who shall remain nameless, tried to stuff me in a locker when I was 19. To the locker-room attendant who saved me, thank you.

• Sadness: When I was an assistant city editor, I had to wake up Lute Olson to tell him that former UA basketball assistant Ricky Byrdsong had been gunned down in Evanston, Ill. After Olson’s wife, Bobbi, yelled, “No, God,” Lute gave me an eloquent quote.

• Proudest: Watching our sports staff pull together some of the biggest stories of the decade: UA football coach John Mackovic’s firing; the death of UA women’s basketball star Shawntinice Polk; Olson’s retirement and Sean Miller’s hiring as basketball coach.

I’m biased, but I considered my sports staff to be one of the hardest-working and professional in the nation.

The Associated Press Sports Editors agreed. It named us a top 10 daily sports section in the nation seven of the last nine years for our circulation category.

Credit goes to my second “family”: Steve Rivera, John Moredich, Anthony Gimino, Bryan Lee, Ken Brazzle, Geoff Grammer, Raymond Suarez and Michael Schmelzle. Correspondents Ash Friederich, Rodney Haas and Christopher Veck deserve high-fives, along with past staffers Dave Petruska, Paul Schwalbach, Michael Caccamise, Shelly Lewellen, David Pittman, Stephen Sharpton, Jessie Vanderson, Charles Durrenberger and Christopher Walsh.

More thanks go out to all the page designers I annoyed with my suggestions, Simpson for his inspiration and guidance, and Peter Madrid, who I succeeded as sports editor in 1999.

Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to all the coaches, players, parents and readers who helped suggest stories and make my job easier.

I’ll miss this place.

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

Multimedia manager Daniel Buckley

The song is on a collection of various artists called “Conjure” – a jazz setting of poetry by Ishmael Reed. The tune is titled “Dualism 1.” The words (sung by Taj Mahal) are:

“I am outside of history.

I wish I had some peanuts.

It looks lonely there in its cage.”

After the instrumental break it returns with:

“I am inside of history.

It’s hungrier than I thought.”

I pick this song because history has just swallowed the Citizen whole.

Book reviewer Larry Cox

It would have to be “Thanks for the Memories,” originally introduced by Shirley Ross and Bob Hope in the 1937 Paramount film, “Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song is wistful and a little sad, exactly how I feel as we get nearer to the final edition of The Tucson Citizen. A close second comes to mind after reading some of the nutty, over-the-top, hateful comments posted by some of our readers on the paper’s Web site: Bessie Smith’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”

Features editor Teresa Truelsen

I would dedicate “Closing Time” by Semisonic. Not only is its sentiment appropriate, but it reminds me of happier times at the Citizen, when former sports editor Peter Madrid would sing the one line – incessantly – early in the morning.

Arts writer Chuck Graham

This is a sad one to write, after working 35 years at the Tucson Citizen, but only one song keeps coming to mind. That would be Bob Hope singing “Thanks for the Memories.”

Reporter Ryn Gargulinski

I am in a bubble

I am in a bubble

I am in a bubble

A bubble

Covers

Me.

“The Bubble Song” (2009) by Ryn Gargulinski

Copy editor Rose-Mary Grzasko

This dedication goes out to my comrades in print journalism as we follow the path of the dinosaur (many of us became such during our years at the Citizen): “Time of Your Life” by Green Day.

“For what it’s worth,

It was worth all the while” . . .

“I hope you had the time of your life.”

I know I did!

Events coordinator Elsa Nidia Barrett

The first song that came to my mind is the ’80s rock song, “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen. But the more I thought about it and dozens of endearing memories (about growing up at the Citizen) flooded my head, I could think of only one melody: Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

“But/ nothing/ I said nothing can take away these blues/ Cause nothing compares/ Nothing compares 2 U.”

Online content editor Mike Truelsen

“Still Be Around” by Uncle Tupelo

It’s about loyalty and dedication and coming out the other side of tragedy/addiction and hoping someone is there when you do.

“If I break in two, will you put me back together?

When this puzzle’s figured out, will you still be around?”

Arts writer Otto Ross

“The Times They are A-Changin’ ” by Bob Dylan

“Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon

For the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who

That it’s namin’.

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin’.”

Cartoonist Arnie Bermudez

“Where the Birds Always Sing” by The Cure

“The world is neither fair nor unfair

The idea is just a way for us to understand

No the world is neither fair nor unfair

So some survive

And others die

And you always want a reason why”

Copy editor Dave Petruska

I’ll go with The Beatles’ “Good Night.” I probably would have picked Billy Joel’s “This is the Time to Remember” if it hadn’t been used for the Lute Olson farewell.

Online editor Dylan Smith

Joe Jackson’s “Sunday Papers”

“Sunday papers don’t ask no questions

Sunday papers don’t get no lies

Sunday papers don’t raise objection

Sunday papers don’t got no eyes”

Metro columnist Anne T. Denogean

“Another One Bites The Dust” by

Queen

Reporter B. Poole

Sheryl Crow’s “Can’t Cry Anymore”

“It’s never ending

It could be worse

I could’ve missed my calling

Sometimes it hurts

But when you read the writing on the wall

Can’t cry anymore”

And too much time I’ve been spending

With my heart in my hands

Waiting for time to come and mend it

I can’t cry anymore”

Voices editor Paul Schwalbach

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Gordon Lightfoot and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

“That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed.” Sounds like us.

And really, for the whole f—— song. As nauseatingly hypersentimental as it is, on our last day, it will be fitting. “Fellas it’s been good to know ya.”

Reporter Heidi Rowley

“Ticket to Ride” by The Beatles or “Unbreak my Heart” by Toni Braxton

Reporter Alan Fischer

Joey Ramone, from a goodbye album he wrote and made while dying of cancer. The title song is “Don’t Worry About Me.”

“Ahh nothing lasts forever

And nothing stays the same

Feeling numb all over

And totally deranged

When you finally make your mind up

I’ll be buried in my grave

You don’t know what you want

You don’t know what you need

You don’t know what you want but you want it”

Information specialist Mary Watt

David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” I feel like the astronaut out in space without a lifeline, with a circuit that’s gone dead.

“Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon, Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.”

Designer Jan Todd

“Sounds of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel

Former features editor Dina L. Doolen

As corny as it may sound, my dedication song to the Citizen would be “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. In my 11 years working at the Citizen, that’s exactly how I felt. We were family, warts and all, and when adversity hit, supervisors and peers insisted that our real families came before the Citizen. Also, if the song was good enough for baseball great Willie Stargell and the Pittsburg Pirates, it’s good enough for the Citizen. Best wishes to all.

Designer Jen Lum

It’s too easy to be cynical about everything that’s happened, so instead I’ll dedicate my favorite ode to an ended relationship, “You and I Both” by Jason Mraz.

“You and I both loved

What you and I spoke of

And others just read of

Others only read of the love, the love that I love.”

I’ve never been able to accurately describe to nonnewspaper people just how much I’ve loved my job and the people I work with. I will miss the Citizen dearly. Thanks for a great run.

Calendar editor Rogelio Yubeta Olivas

After getting ridiculed by my co-workers for my first two picks (“My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler), I’ll go with Charanga Cakewalk’s “Tu y Yo (You and I.” The love song not only adds some Latin spice to the Citizen playlist, it truly describes how I feel about the paper. It’s about two lovers who are linked forever.

Citizen Staff Report
THE FINAL EDITION

Employees remaining when the end came and their start dates:

Baker, Wayne 06/27/06

Barrett, Elsa 04/14/82

Bermudez, Arnie 12/18/06

Boice, Jennifer 08/22/83

Bracamonte, Renee 01/29/04

Brazzle, Ken 09/17/85

Brosseau, Carli 12/31/07

Brownstone, Lorrie 09/09/96

Buckley, Dan 08/03/87

Bustamante, Mary 08/29/78

Caccamise, Michael 01/22/03

Cañez, Val 01/04/93

Carlock, Judy 05/26/80

Chavez, Dianna 03/02/98

Chesnick, Mike 12/04/95

Clemens, Bill 07/26/93

Denogean, Anne 11/01/93

Douglas, Gawain 03/10/03

Duffy, Garry 03/26/01

Dunham, Kristina 03/05/07

Echavarri, Fernanda 05/05/08

Evans, Mark 01/22/07

Fimbres, Gabrielle 01/07/85

Fischer, Alan 03/26/07

Flick, A. J. 10/11/93

Gallegos, Xavier 02/17/74

Gargulinski, Ryn 01/14/07

Gimino, Anthony 12/27/04

Graham, Chuck 03/11/74

Grammer, Geoff 02/20/07

Grzasko, Rose-Mary 09/01/86

Harris, Randy 04/25/94

Higgins, Polly 02/17/00

Horton, Renee Schafer 09/24/07

Johnston, Bruce 05/21/73

Kimble, Mark 12/16/74

Kornman, Sheryl 09/28/99

Lee, Bryan 12/31/86

Luber, Diane 11/01/04

Lum, Jennifer 03/27/06

McVay, MJ 06/02/98

Medina, Francisco 08/02/99

Moredich, John 08/13/00

Olivas, Rogelio 08/06/90

Petruska, Dave 02/07/77

Poole, B. 08/04/98

Pugno, Monica 08/03/06

Rivera, Steve 08/14/87

Rochon, Joel 05/06/74

Ross, Otto 08/29/08

Rowley, Heidi 01/06/03

Sagara, Eric 05/26/02

Schmelzle, Michael 07/17/99

Schwalbach, Paul 08/27/79

Smith, Dylan 05/16/05

Stanton, Billie 04/29/04

Stauffer, Tom 01/15/07

Suarez, Raymond 08/28/08

Teibel, David 07/13/81

Todd, Jan 07/12/93

Truelsen, Michael 07/11/94

Truelsen, Teresa 03/18/96

Vitu, Teya 11/24/00

Watt, Mary 08/06/07

Weber, Warren 01/02/01

Weis, P.K. 03/14/73

West, Jennifer 04/28/08

Wyckoff, Jim 11/16/72