I remember baseball tryouts for Coach Darien DeRocher as a freshman at Foley High School.

He knew I couldn’t hit a curveball and had me sitting at the end of the bench.

The message came the next day on the team ‘cut list.’ My path to a major league career had been derailed.

There were tears. I loved baseball and I could throw the ball from centerfield on a dime, but curveballs were a problem.

So, at Age 15 I started what I will soon conclude here at the Citizen-Tribune. If I couldn’t play the game, I would write about it. I approached the high school Foleyan editors and asked for a job. I got it, and that month, my first story with byline appeared. I didn’t care that they had misspelled my name in the byline - I had my first byline. That was a lot of bylines ago.

It will end here June 27 with our last issue of the Citizen-Tribune. A cast of very talented and spirited present staffers will take over operations. They can explain their plans in the weeks ahead.

With six years internships at the St. Cloud Times, Bird Island Union and Cottonwood County Citizen at Windom, plus the 41 years here along Hwy. 10 and Wright County, I will have logged 47 years selling ads, managing offices and bylines.

Many of the names have drifted away, but the faces are still familiar. Oh, so many faces.

So many ads, so many meetings and sports nights. So many festivals and graduations and county fairs and - so many of everything.

Happy stories. Sad stories. But always about people in our midst. Always see things through their eyes. The story isn’t about you; the story is about them.

Be accurate. Be fair.

These local opportunities have opened the doors to world travel. I’ve visited 60 countries and learned about their citizens, always coming home with the realization, we may have it better than them, but they’ve been doing life for a lot longer time.

I won’t forget that fateful November night in 1978, while planning the start of the West Sherburne Tribune. I was short of the needed advertisers to begin the paper. I sat into the early morning hours at my parents’ home in Oak Park, head in my hands. Mom came down from upstairs and asked how the numbers looked.

“Not enough,” I responded.

She sat down, pulled the paperwork away from me, and said:

“Just do it.”

Bill Morgan, Carol Hanson, Chris Meyer and Kathy Nelson are the new management team. Their first production of Patriot will occur July 4.