Jim Ketchum
From James Donahue’s Journal
One year we had an over-zealous person in Port Huron, either one of the publishers or managing editors, that decided to expand operations of the bureaus. At the time the Times Herald had three operating news bureaus, one in Marine City, one in Capac, and mine in Sandusky. My bureau was certainly the busiest since my beat included not only all of Sanilac County, but portions of Huron County to the north. Thus the decision was made to add a second bureau reporter.
My editor notified me of the decision and asked if I knew any reporters in the area that might be interested in the job. I knew Jim Ketchum who had been working as a young reporter for the Cass City Chronicle, a weekly paper operating in neighboring Tuscola County. We had met at various regional government meetings and I had been impressed with his writing abilities. I called him and told him about the job. He applied and was hired. Thus Jim joined me in the Sanilac Bureau.
That was a fun time at the bureau. Jim not only was a good writer but he was full of energy and willing to pull his weight. Together we covered that county like a glove. Jim also was a walking encyclopedia. He could spell just about any word correctly without looking in the dictionary (those were the days before we had computer software with spell checkers), he knew the meaning of just about any word you threw at him, and he turned out to be a very handy fellow to have in any newsroom.
Jim and his wife, Alice, and their daughter, Katy, bought a small home west of Sandusky and settled in. Alice, a trained librarian, was an intellectual type. While she was a pleasant person, she was a bad cook. We found that out when Doris and I were invited one night to the Ketchum’s for dinner. She served dry chicken that took some chewing to digest. After that I knew why Jim liked to come to our house every time Doris put on a community feast for our graduating teens. He wolfed down her food. Overall, Jim and Alice never had much of a weight problem. And that was understandable.
Jim had a great sense of humor and we both had favorite political cartoonists. I always received two copies of the newspaper so I could cut stories out of one of them for filing and take the other one home. After Jim arrived, we started clipping some of the best of the cartoons from the paper and posting them on our office wall. That got to be such a regular thing we soon had the walls plastered with the funniest cartoons. It was hard to walk around the room looking at them without being doubled over with laughter.
Jim’s desk was located by the front window. We had a curtain but sometimes he liked to have the curtain open so he could watch things going on outside. I usually kept the curtain closed so people didn’t feel the impulse to walk in to visit when we had work to do. But Jim was a girl watcher, and he always made sure I didn’t miss the sights when an attractive woman passed.
For a while the Times Herald added a third person to our office. They hired a woman to answer the telephone while we were out, take advertising orders and handle circulation issues. She was a middle-aged, attractive woman. I cannot remember her name. She didn’t stay with us very long because the paper soon discovered that she did not sell enough ads and get enough new subscriptions to pay her salary.
After a few years, with another publisher and another managing editor at the helm, the decision was made to close the Capac and Marine City bureaus and cut the staff in our office to one. Jim was brought to Port Huron where he quickly moved into a slot as a copy editor. It was the perfect job for a man with his fantastic memory. He could edit copy with lightning speed because he rarely, if ever, had to stop to look up a work in the dictionary. I think he remained on that job as long as I was at that newspaper.
I missed Jim’s company after he left the Sanilac office. For a while they sent a young woman up to train under me. She had been locked in a job on the society news desk, and was having problems after they moved her over to a job on a real news desk. I worked with her and she was starting to be a big help on the bureau. But she was driving back and forth from her home in Port Huron, and one day she had an accident and wrecked her car. She was not hurt, but the wreck caused her to decide to give up the job. I think she just resigned from the newspaper. I don’t remember her name either.
From James Donahue’s Journal
One year we had an over-zealous person in Port Huron, either one of the publishers or managing editors, that decided to expand operations of the bureaus. At the time the Times Herald had three operating news bureaus, one in Marine City, one in Capac, and mine in Sandusky. My bureau was certainly the busiest since my beat included not only all of Sanilac County, but portions of Huron County to the north. Thus the decision was made to add a second bureau reporter.
My editor notified me of the decision and asked if I knew any reporters in the area that might be interested in the job. I knew Jim Ketchum who had been working as a young reporter for the Cass City Chronicle, a weekly paper operating in neighboring Tuscola County. We had met at various regional government meetings and I had been impressed with his writing abilities. I called him and told him about the job. He applied and was hired. Thus Jim joined me in the Sanilac Bureau.
That was a fun time at the bureau. Jim not only was a good writer but he was full of energy and willing to pull his weight. Together we covered that county like a glove. Jim also was a walking encyclopedia. He could spell just about any word correctly without looking in the dictionary (those were the days before we had computer software with spell checkers), he knew the meaning of just about any word you threw at him, and he turned out to be a very handy fellow to have in any newsroom.
Jim and his wife, Alice, and their daughter, Katy, bought a small home west of Sandusky and settled in. Alice, a trained librarian, was an intellectual type. While she was a pleasant person, she was a bad cook. We found that out when Doris and I were invited one night to the Ketchum’s for dinner. She served dry chicken that took some chewing to digest. After that I knew why Jim liked to come to our house every time Doris put on a community feast for our graduating teens. He wolfed down her food. Overall, Jim and Alice never had much of a weight problem. And that was understandable.
Jim had a great sense of humor and we both had favorite political cartoonists. I always received two copies of the newspaper so I could cut stories out of one of them for filing and take the other one home. After Jim arrived, we started clipping some of the best of the cartoons from the paper and posting them on our office wall. That got to be such a regular thing we soon had the walls plastered with the funniest cartoons. It was hard to walk around the room looking at them without being doubled over with laughter.
Jim’s desk was located by the front window. We had a curtain but sometimes he liked to have the curtain open so he could watch things going on outside. I usually kept the curtain closed so people didn’t feel the impulse to walk in to visit when we had work to do. But Jim was a girl watcher, and he always made sure I didn’t miss the sights when an attractive woman passed.
For a while the Times Herald added a third person to our office. They hired a woman to answer the telephone while we were out, take advertising orders and handle circulation issues. She was a middle-aged, attractive woman. I cannot remember her name. She didn’t stay with us very long because the paper soon discovered that she did not sell enough ads and get enough new subscriptions to pay her salary.
After a few years, with another publisher and another managing editor at the helm, the decision was made to close the Capac and Marine City bureaus and cut the staff in our office to one. Jim was brought to Port Huron where he quickly moved into a slot as a copy editor. It was the perfect job for a man with his fantastic memory. He could edit copy with lightning speed because he rarely, if ever, had to stop to look up a work in the dictionary. I think he remained on that job as long as I was at that newspaper.
I missed Jim’s company after he left the Sanilac office. For a while they sent a young woman up to train under me. She had been locked in a job on the society news desk, and was having problems after they moved her over to a job on a real news desk. I worked with her and she was starting to be a big help on the bureau. But she was driving back and forth from her home in Port Huron, and one day she had an accident and wrecked her car. She was not hurt, but the wreck caused her to decide to give up the job. I think she just resigned from the newspaper. I don’t remember her name either.