A few weeks ago, I heard a rumor that my former student, Stephen Buckley, had been appointed managing editor of the St. Petersburg Times, the newspaper owned by The Poynter Institute. I called his home to confirm it. His wife Cathleen answered, and I asked quickly “Is it true?” She laughed, “It’s true.”
I did not anticipate what happened next. I excused myself from the call and promised that I would call back. “Oh my God,” I explained, shocked at my own emotion, as if I had discovered I was bleeding, “I think I’m about to cry.”
I had never wept over a managing editor before (although I’ve probably been tempted, but not from joy).
To understand the source of this emotion, you have to travel back in time with me to March of 1981. It is a Saturday morning, and I’m a skinny journalism teacher surrounded by young students. The setting is a technical school in St. Pete, and the event is a job fair sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. I am there to talk about journalism, take some writing samples, and see if I can spot talent for our summer high school camp.
I turn just in time to see a short, thin young man standing beside me. He has deep brown eyes, an intelligent face and a broad smile. His head comes up to my shoulder.
“Dr. Clark,” he says with astonishing poise and confidence: “I’d like to be in your program.”
I learn he is only in the eighth grade. “This program is for students who are already in high school,” I insist.
“If you let me in, you won’t be sorry.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I want to become the next Red Smith,” he said, referring to the famous sports writer.
I let him in the program, but who wouldn’t? For this parable is not a tribute to my open mind, but to Stephen’s fixed gaze. Gifts of character — determination, patience, hard work — he inherited from his family, especially his mother, Ione, who recognized her son’s talents and nurtured them by giving him a copy of William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well.” (His mother has passed away, but the book survives as a tribute to her vision.)
At the ages of 14 and 15, Stephen went through five-week training programs at Poynter. He learned how to find story ideas, collect information, interview and describe, write leads and organize stories, and revise and edit. The St. Pete Times even published an op-ed piece that he wrote as a high school freshman.
Stephen moved with his mother to the Bronx, N.Y., where he became a columnist and editor for the newspaper at DeWitt Clinton High School. But he continued to return to St. Pete for summer newspaper work. When he was 16, Stephen got a job as a copy clerk at the Times under the wing of Carolyn Douse. Within days, his enterprise earned him a writing opportunity for Steve Nohlgren in sports.
What a surprise to open my sports page one day and see, in the lead position, a story about the Continental Basketball Association. By Stephen Buckley. About a dozen other stories followed. Nohlgren, in his wisdom, offered Stephen a job for the next summer as a sports intern. Remember that Stephen was still only 17 years old.
He did so well his editor declared, “I’ve never had a college intern who was as well prepared and as professional as Stephen.” When Stephen returned to New York for his senior year in high school, the Times would call on him for an occasional story, including a visit to Yankee Stadium for a feature on Mickey Mantle.
Gene Patterson, editor of the Times back then, took a personal interest in Stephen. The paper offered him a generous college scholarship. Patterson called his friend Bill Green, former ombudsman for The Washington Post who was working at Duke University, and Green helped open the door to Duke with additional scholarship money.
Stephen earned good grades in a tough academic program and began to acquire writing interests beyond the world of sports. During the summer of 1987, Stephen interned with The Wall Street Journal in Detroit. He received two job offers out of college, one from a metropolitan daily in the Midwest and one from The Washington Post. I urged him to start his career at the smaller paper. Stephen chose the Post, where he went to work for Milton Coleman. Hired as part of a two-year try-out program, Stephen was offered a permanent position at the Post after only 11 months.
After covering cops, courts and schools as part of suburban beats, Stephen earned a position as a foreign correspondent, spending three years reporting from Nairobi, Kenya, and then two more from Brazil. Now married and raising a family, he decided to accept an offer to return to his hometown paper in St. Petersburg, where he quickly developed a reputation as a strong reporter and writer, and a promising editor.
My friends at the Times would report to me on Stephen’s progress. This once short skinny kid was now a tall commanding presence with a deep, calm voice. Tom French told me, “He has leader written all over him.” And Dave Scheiber recounted how Stephen would greet him in the hallway with some sincere praise for one of his stories.
Let me take you back in time again to when Stephen was 19. Here is the lead of a story he wrote for the St. Pete Times:
In the middle of his living room, Hector Camacho is pacing. Shuffling his feet. Flailing his arms. Slashing his hands through the air. Snapping his fingers.
And talking.
“Only me understands me,” he says. “But I’m good –- a good man, a good father and a great boxer. I’m the macho man. The macho of the machos. A man’s man. That’s why people want to see me take a downfall. I know what I’m telling you.”
Camacho wears a sleeveless black shirt, black pants, and black velvet driving glove with spikes over the knuckles. A diamond earring gleams in his left ear. His two gold necklaces jump as he moves. The pendant on one of the necklaces says, “Macho.”
Red Smith would have been proud of that prose, especially as it came from someone who was just learning his craft. Through a combination of natural talent, family support, hard work, dedication, and good training, Stephen was on the verge of a great newspaper career at an age when some students are still trying to pick their majors.
His promotion to managing editor means a lot to a lot of us.
For his colleagues at the Times, it is time to celebrate the elevation of one of their own. His selection has brought applause for those leaders at the paper who recognized Stephen’s gifts and has inspired hope and aspiration among the rank and file.
For those of us at Poynter, Stephen is the product of a idea first articulated by Nelson Poynter himself on how to attract new generations of talent to journalism: “Find them young. Give them what they need. And don’t let go.”
And for me? Why am I standing in the hallway of my house, the telephone in my hand, tears running down my face? Because the Yankees lost to the Red Sox? Stephen, with his Bronx roots, would understand that. No, my emotion is an uncomplicated feeling — experienced by many teachers, but too rarely expressed. Stephen, I am proud of you.
