Who are all these old geezers?” my wife joked as we walked into the River Center at Saluda Shoals Park late one afternoon last week. We were there to celebrate the retirement of Bill Rogers, the man who turned the SC Press Association into a force for freedom of information and transparency in government.

Editors, writers and publishers from all over the state were there including Gov. Henry McMaster, Rep. Chip Huggins. press association leaders from as far west as Mississippi, professors from the USC journalism school and a few spouses who were lured into coming for free margaritas, fried chicken and barbecue.

The press association was once an ugly baby. My wife worked there when it was housed in Earl McIntire’s tiny office at the J-school on the USC Horseshoe.

She clipped stories from newspapers for corporate public relations people, answered phones and whatever else was needed.

The press association outgrew that office and moved to a little white clapboard house on Calhoun Street. Reid Montgomery worked part-time when he wasn’t teaching at Carolina.

Keeping members served and the clipping service going was an overworked lady.

We had no Cathy Dreher, a Lexington native, to protect us at the Statehouse. The lawmakers made it tough to ferret out what they were up to which was plenty troubling.

We had no attorney Jay Bender to bail us out of jail. You needed your own law degree to stay out of trouble, Newspaper editors were pretty much on their own.

In 1988, we recruited Bill Rogers, a young instructor at Carolina. Bill had worked for a number of newspapers before becoming an academic. The only question was did he have the managerial skills the job needed?

Bill proved he did and a miraculous change began that continues today.

Bill saw a vision for the association to keep editors out of jail and help sell advertising for always cash-strapped publishers.

Bill is no whipper snapper. The three of us grew up working in noisy newspaper newsrooms with the clacking of typewriters and teletype machines. You typed “30” on the end of a story to let editors know that’s all.

Back then a dummy wasn’t someone hard of hearing. It was a newsprint layout sheet on which you drew where headlines, type and photos went. Reporting was more by shoe leather than even the telephone.

Type was set in hot lead ad pages were assembled on heavy rolling tables. If a story was too long, you read it upside down and backwards which you had to learn to do. You found a way to cut 3” or 4” off and leftover type went into a hell box.

A fast compositor could put a page together in an hour. Today we can write, edit and design pages in minutes on computers.

Sure we could hype a crime story. But facts were facts. No fake news.

The world has changed in ways none of us could have anticipated. And the press association has changed, too, due to Bill’s leadership. He’s had a good 33 years.

Please write if you have a comment or story from your own life to share to JerryBellune@yahoo.com

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