Long-time Frontiersman reporter says it's time for change

Spectrum, by Eowyn LeMay Ivey

When I was talking with a friend recently about leaving the Frontiersman for another job, he got a funny look on his face. "Do you think I'm making a mistake? Is this a bad decision?" I asked nervously. "No, it's not that," he said. "I don't know. It's just kind of sad."

At the time, I was more preoccupied by the excitement and anxiety of such a big change in my life. But more recently I've come to realize he's right -- even though I'll still be here in the Mat-Su Valley, there is something terribly sad about saying good-bye to the Frontiersman and all the people I've worked with and written about over the years.

I started at this newspaper as a college journalism student in 1995. I grew up here in the Valley and had returned home to wrap up my degree with an internship at my hometown newspaper. I had no intention of sticking around, but this six-week stint quickly evolved into a full-time position. More than eight years later I can say I've done almost every job on the editorial side of this building.

During that time, the people who have come and gone from this newsroom have become some of my dearest friends. There have been weddings, house warmings, births, divorces, battles with cancer and even deaths. Through it all my comrades at this newspaper have proven to be some of the strongest, bravest, funniest, most caring, most intelligent people I have ever known.

At the same time, I have met hundreds of people around the Valley through the subjects I've covered, including schools, city government, business, the outdoors, borough and state government and even a few crime and sports stories. Along the way I discovered the impossible challenge of trying to make one story please a lot of people -- the advocates on the various sides of an issue, the readers, the editor and myself.

This is not an easy job, and our faults are right out there for everyone to see. Perhaps one of my most infamous mistakes was referring to a "wench" on the front of a four-wheeler rather than a "winch," throughout an entire outdoors article. I can laugh about this one now, but the same is not true of other mistakes I have made.

Over the years, though, I've learned a great deal about this community and about myself as a writer. When I covered difficult political issues, I strove to be fair and balanced and to genuinely understand everyone's concerns. When I wrote feature stories about people living in our community, I aimed to capture something of their essence that would hopefully touch other people's lives.

All of this is more difficult to accomplish than I can explain, and for a long while I have enjoyed the challenge. But now it's time for a change.

Beginning this week, I'll be working at Fireside Books in Palmer, still surrounded by ideas and the written word -- the same elements that originally drew me to journalism -- but there won't be any late-night government meetings or the stress of embarrassing, front-page goofs.

Working for a newspaper, I have discovered, is about living on adrenaline, being surrounded by conflict and disorder and trying to turn it into something understandable and important. These years as a reporter have been both wonderful and trying, exhilarating and exhausting. I won't lie -- I'm looking forward to leaving much of this behind, but I also recognize what else I will lose.

I want to thank everyone here at the Frontiersman who I've worked over the years, for the skills they taught me and the friendship and support they've given me both professionally and personally.

I also want to thank all those people who I've written about. Thank you for inviting me into your homes and trusting me with your stories. I hope I did them justice.

I doubt this is will be the very last thing I write for the Frontiersman. I don't know if I can resist writing an outdoors column now and then, and some are predicting I will eventually come to my senses and in a year or so want to return to the newsroom. Whatever happens in the future, I do know one thing -- the Frontiersman will always be dear to my heart.

Eowyn LeMay Ivey lives in Palmer.