An imaginary toast at the RG reunion

By Jim Godbold

I am surrounded by people of such rich and varied talents that the cliche “I’m not worthy” doesn’t remotely do justice to my admiration. How in heaven’s name does Bob Welch do so much within the same 24 hours I can’t manage to get to the grocery store? How do you people write and edit books, teach, publish Substack essays, launch online newspapers, live abroad, have second and third careers?

My confession, though it hardly merits that label with how obvious and mundane the revelation will be, is that I was the quintessential overachiever at The Register-Guard. The embodiment of the bumper sticker “It’s better to be lucky than good.” I was in the right place at so many right times with the right magic in my stars that I became the poster boy for ranked-choice voting. The candidate with the most second-place votes can win when the first-place candidates cannibalize each other’s constituents. The formula held as I rose through the ranks from assistant city editor to features editor to assistant managing editor to managing editor to executive editor to associate editor. At every one of those upwardly mobile milestones there were smarter people who were simply in the right place at the wrong time. The fault was in their stars.

That said, I did have one superpower: I was an excellent judge of talent. I hired Bob Welch three times. I made it possible for superbly skilled journalists to do their thing at the RG and continue to polish the diamond into the brilliant gem that unites our careers and experiences and brings us together today. There are worse legacies than “He got out of the way and let the superstars shine.”