A couple of weeks ago this area lost a well-respected retired member of the journalism community.
Virginia Bradshaw passed away on Feb. 9 at her home. She was 92 years old.
She had played a role in my entering into the world of journalism and played a role in my landing my first newspaper job.
She was a person I respected and looked up to since I first met her in 1966 when I entered St. Gregory’s Junior College as a freshman.
Virginia was my first and only journalism instructor during the two years at St. Gregory’s. She chose me as a co-editor of the college paper that year.
As a sophomore, I became her sports editor for that paper for the entire year before graduating with an Associate degree and moving on to a fouryear college.
But it was what she did during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at SGC that I always will be grateful to her for and remember.
That summer, in August, she called me and told me she had recommended me for a part-time reporter position at the daily paper in Shawnee. Her husband Jim, who died in 2006, worked for the paper and wanted to know did she have someone who might be interested in filling the part-time position.
We set up a phone interview with Jim for a day or two later. In talking with Jim, I told him I was interested. He set up an interview with his bosses and Jim sat in on it.
At the end of it, I was offered the position. Jim became my mentor. And 47 years later, I retired from that newspaper, following in Jim’s footsteps.
As he was promoted, I was too. In 1977 I became city editor and when Jim retired in 1991 as managing editor, I was promoted to that job, a position I held for 23 years until I retired from that paper in November of 2014.
All because I had met Virginia as a college freshman.
She was a very special person. She had thought enough of me and believed in me to recommend me for that position.
About the time I became city editor, she joined the paper again. She had been there previously and after Jim retired, I had the opportunity to be her boss. It was hard to see her retire in 2002 from the paper.
Still, she and Jim stayed in touch and they’d help me out occasionally on election nights.
She was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame several years ago.
Virginia was a tenacious reporter when she had to be. One thing she did was take pure shorthand, a trait I never knew any other person in the business to have.
If someone she interviewed tried to say he or she was misquoted, she would gladly read the quote back to him or her. She always had it right.
My wife Pat recalled the other day that trait in Virginia, laughing at what she would tell the person.
On election nights, before the results started coming in, Pat and I often would go out and eat dinner with Jim and Virginia, always enjoying it.
It would be easy to go on and on about Virginia. She was genuine, really down to earth and a woman who was devoted to her late husband and her family.
It was a privilege to know Virginia Bradshaw.