The End of An Era

For all of us here at The Watch newspaper, it’s a bittersweet time. This is the last edition of The Watch under the ownership of Marta Tarbell and Seth Cagin, before it sells to the Telluride Daily Planet.

For the past 17 years, Marta and Seth have dedicated themselves to providing news that was accurate, informative and often humorous – in a beautifully designed format. It’s a quality product that is hard to come by in this ever-changing world of journalism.

In the eight years that I’ve been a part of The Watch family, I’ve often heard stories of this newspaper’s earliest days, when the paper was actually laid out on the bed in their Telluride home’s master bedroom. Volume 1, Number 1 of The Telluride Watch was published on Friday, Jan. 17, 1997, with “Council Denies New Protections for Historic Sheds” as its lead story on page 1. The edition also included a story about the swearing-in of San Miguel Commissioner Art Goodtimes, on page 5. Goodtimes, now the longest-running columnist for The Watch, remains a San Miguel County Commissioner to this day.

With a masthead of just two and with a motto promising “straight reporting,” “great cartoons,” and an “eight-day calendar,” Seth and Marta launched a newspaper that would later become the voice of an entire region, from Montrose to Ouray to Ridgway, and from Telluride to Norwood to Naturita.

As the newspaper grew over the years, so did the number of people who would call The Watch home. A decade after its first edition, the Watch masthead of two grew to a masthead of 33. Today, following the downsizing effects of the Great Recession, The Watch has a masthead of 21.

While Marta and Seth brought their journalistic knowledge and sense of news to their own paper, one of their greatest attributes in publishing The Watch was the way they treated the people who worked for them. They made The Watch a family. Not only would they give guidance when guidance was needed, but they would also allow staff to be creative in their own individual ways. It didn’t matter if you were a writer, a graphic designer and or advertising sales representative, they wanted your creativity unleashed to help the entire business succeed. They always treated everyone with respect, and in return, we all did our best to make The Watch the best paper in the region. Each and every Thursday, we all were proud to pick up the latest copy of The Watch and see that week’s work in print. It never got old.

Forward-thinking newspaper publishers like Seth and Marta naturally attract creative talent. In my tenure here at The Watch, I can honestly say I’ve worked with some of the most creative, upbeat and dedicated personalities in and around the region. Here are just a few of the people who have, over the years, made The Watch what it is today: Our columnists over the years – including Jack Pera, Art Goodtimes, Rob Schultheis, Peter Shelton, Martinique Davis, and the fiery voice of the late Grace Herndon – not only informed readers, but drew a line in the sand about important issues. Of course some of The Watch’s most heated and contentious columns were written by Seth, who always had a way of making his point seem impossible to disregard.

Community journalism is all about creating relationships, and The Watch always worked tirelessly to make advertising work for businesses throughout the region. Patrick Nicklaus and Peggy Kiniston, who worked for the paper in years past, laid a strong foundation for our current advertising staff of Tammy Kulpa, Melissa Lonsbury and Alec Jacobson. Advertising makes the world go ’round in the newspaper business, and without the hard work (often the hardest work) from these folks, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

The Watch, since it expanded to cover the entire region several years ago, has always taken pride in covering local news first and foremost. There’s a reason why you don’t see Associated Press stories in The Watch. Over the years, we have had some very, very talented writers report the news in these pages. Of course Seth and Marta, The Watch’s original newsroom, laid the foundation to good reporting. Others who came along over the years included Peter Kenworthy, Peter Shelton, Jeff Hunt, Adam Smith, Douglas McDaniel, Krista Sherer, Allison Perry, Samantha Wright, Andy Sawyer, Martinique Davis, and William Woody, to name a few.

Of course the stories these reporters filed each and every week always looked and read their best, thanks to the editing skills Jessica Newens, Josie Jay, Marta and Leslie Vreeland. To those who have edited me time and time again, I can’t thank you enough.

The photography work of Woody, Alec Jacobson, and, of course, Brett Schreckengost brought life to all those stories in a way that nobody else in the region could.

To put it all together, on a page, we must give a nod to The Watch’s design team over the years, including Anne Reeser, Casey Nay, Cecily Bryson, Barbara Kondracki, Rick Bickhart, and Nate Moore. No paper in the state of Colorado has a better, more aesthetic design than The Watch.

And, of course, none of it this would have been possible without the circulation services of Scott Nuechterlein and his crews for distributing The Watch to the far reaches of San Miguel, Montrose and Ouray counties.

On a personal note, while I worked in offices around the region, I particularly liked working in the Telluride office best, alongside Marta. I will miss our chats about literature, the latest in The New Yorker, upcoming news stories and, even, a little gossip here and there. I think Marta and I brought out the best in each other at The Watch. It was work, but it was always fun, and I always looked forward to it.

While I’ve only listed a few names from the paper’s masthead (there are certainly more who I’m sure deserve mention), my point here is this: The Watch is and has been a family of dedicated watchers. They are all the DNA of what this great regional newspaper is, and was. It is a conglomeration many different talents and personalities. Marta and Seth have been the glue keeping it all together and letting it grow collectively.

It goes without saying that the positive mark Seth and Marta have left on not only Telluride but the entire region with The Watch and its special publications is immeasurable. I wish them luck in their next, more relaxed, adventures and hope they can spend more time consuming media than worrying about creating it.

I wish the new owners of The Watch the best of luck, as well. They have big and important shoes to fill.