Farewell to a True Community Journalist

I think I can speak not only for the staff here at The Watch, but for our readers and the entire Western Slope community, as well, when I say that the departure of photojournalist, reporter and all around newsman William Woody is going to be felt for a long, long time.

Next week, Woody will pack up his cameras, lenses and faded Duke T-shirts and head to Ashville, N.C. where he will take his career to the next level as a staff photographer for the Citizen-Times.

In this move, he’ll be trading Six Shooter Pale Ales for Cheerwine, Bronco Sundays for NASCAR Sundays and Telluride’s music festival scene for Ashville’s lively bluegrass scene.

All in all, it’s an exciting move for the Woody family, and I know he will bring a dedication to news and his photographer’s eye to the Ashville scene that they’ve never seen before.

The Citizen-Times is lucky to have Will Woody on board.

And we’ve been lucky to have Will Woody shooting, writing and showing an unparalleled dedication to community journalism for the past couple of years. As a photographer, my words can’t begin to describe the talent he has behind the lens. You’ve all seen his work on these pages before, and in other publications, including The Denver Post, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel; he grew up in the business, and began shooting for the Montrose Daily Press in the days when his father, Stephen, was its publisher.

Nowadays, Woody, as we know him, seems to be everywhere in the region, shooting everything from high-speed shots of high-school football touchdowns to the first ears of the Olathe corn harvest, taking a GoPro ride on a crop duster and portraits of World War II veterans and close-ups of the Montrose County Commissioners, most likely to their dismay. Woody captures these moments as only he can, and we will miss his artful chronicles of life in this region in our pages.

Woody’s storytelling as a photographer carries through to his reporting; he knows a good narrative story when he sees one. Very rarely do we get a story from Woody that doesn’t have a deeper meaning, below the surface. From his story about homelessness in Montrose to his telling the stories of two teenage mothers continuing their education, his humanity shines through. He works hard to find the stories nobody else is telling and tells them, using pictures and often words, as well, as nobody else can.

Woody is dedicated to his profession. If you are a regular reader of his Facebook feed, you know what I’m talking about. He loves a scoop, and will work (to the dismay of his wife, Jeana) all hours to get one. His dedication to the police scanner on a Sunday last November was at the heart of reporter Samantha Wright’s prompt, accurate and award-winning coverage of the mine tragedy in Ouray.

While he takes his job seriously, Woody knows how to have fun in his work. Take, for instance, the first sentence of his first-person account of his mock firefight with the Montrose Police SWAT team last January: “All I was told was to bring gloves, a heavy coat ‘and something to protect your junk.’ Those instructions didn’t really intimidate me; I’ve been looking for a gunfight with the police for some time, and now I was preparing to reap what I’d sowed.”

Priceless.

On a personal note, I am going to miss slugging back beers with Woody at the Horsefly after the paper’s gone to bed, hanging with Jeana occasionally and horsing around with his two munchkins, Stella and Wilson. I look forward to watching them grow up on Woody and Jeana’s closely followed Facebook feed.

Community journalists wear many hats and keep odd hours, going from sports reporter/photographer on a Tuesday evening to capturing  the community’s heartbreak upon the death of a child to the drudgery of town and county politics and school board meetings, being fair to your sources and compelling your readers, at the same time.

But foremost, a community journalist has to love his community. Woody embodies the ethos of community journalism, and we will miss him, here in Montrose, and here at The Watch.

He is irreplaceable.