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Published: July 14, 2008 09:13 am    print this story   email this story  

Just do the best you can

By Jo Anne Efird, Lifestyles Editor

Sunday, July 13, 2008 — If Johnny Andrew were to have an epitaph it would have to be “Just do the best you can.”

When any of us came to him with a problem over the years he was editor, he would lean back in his chair, take a long draw off his cigarette (this was before it became politically incorrect to smoke at your desk)‚ exhale and then reply, “Just do the best you can.”

And we did. And it always came out okay.

He never seemed to get frusrated, angry or impatient. Only once in 20 years did I see him upset enough that the cigarette trembled slightly in his fingers. Someone was not satisfied with the placement of a story. It had been placed to prevent a grocery ad from bleeding through from the back, which happened some days with hot type. What was done to try to make it better was taken the wrong way and, as the buck stopped with Johnny, he really caught the brunt of the person’s anger. He did not argue, fuss back or let it be known he was upset. He just listened.

But when the person left, Johnny was a little bit trembly.

He had a way with handiling complaints.

But no matter how much someone complained, he never, ever failed to take up for his employees. If we made a mistake, he apologized for the mistake, but he never belittled the person that made the mistake or fussed at us for making it. He knew we would not make the same mistake again. He just listened to the complainer and tried to smooth things out.

If changing the way we did things would help, we changed things a little so a similar mistake would not happen again.

For instance, we used to take a lot of news on the telephone. Right after I came to work here, someone called and said her daughter was married over the weekend in South Carolina and wanted an annoucement in the paper. I put it in.

Problem was, the couple never got married and it was not a member of either of their families that called.

After that, we made a rule that we had to have something in writing before we put a wedding in the paper.

However, Johnny was not one to be run over or let his employees be run over. He stood his ground, calmly and cooly. When I first came to work here someone called me to complain and was very abusive, cursing me. When I hung up the phone, I told Johnny about it. He said,“You don’t have to listen to cursing. You don’t have to take that. Just hang up the phone when anyone starts that.”

I heard him tell one person, “You have an advantage over me. You know my name but I don’t know yours. If you can’t tell me your name, we can’t discuss this.” The person did not tell him so he hung up the phone.

Another time a bride brought a picture and wedding form in and I was talking to her. The picture was fuzzy, grainy, impossible. I told her, “You will not be happy with this picture in the paper. We need a better one.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “We will just tell everybody the paper messed it up.”

Johnny happened to be walking through the lobby at the time. He calmly stepped over, took the picture and form from me, handed it back to her and told her he was sorry, but we would not print her wedding in the paper.

Of course, as an employee, I could not have refused her, but as a co-owner and editor, Johnny could — and did.

He would not let the paper, or an employee be treated unfairly.

For 40 years, I have tried to do things the way he taught me. Things have changed a lot over the years, but even after he retired, I always knew Johnny was reading what I wrote. Somehow I knew he knew I was trying to adapt to the changes.

He was always fair, always calm, always patient and almost always right.

He was a man who lived by his own words, “Just do the best you can.”

Jo Anne Efird is lifestyles editor of The Stanly News and Press.

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