By Carol Stiffler
We lost our gentle contributing writer, Dr. Paul Dake, last week. He’s answered his last Dr., Why? question, and after his death on Wednesday, March 5, he finally rests (see his obituary on page 4). Dr. Dake worked in family practice and was, essentially, a family man. In his weekly column, he patiently answered questions about medications, symptoms, vaccines, and frequently offered advice to help people avoid becoming diabetic. He often praised doctors for staying up on the latest medical news.
It was wonderful that he continued to share his personal encyclopedia of medical knowledge. He answered readers’ questions for free and probably had quite a stack in his inbox right till the end. We last heard from him the day before he died; he never truly left the field of medicine.
Losing Dr. Dake hurts, and he’s not the first writer we’ve lost this way. Four years ago, the deep-thinking Curtis writer Tom Hoogterp died – just a day after sending in his final article. What a gut punch.
While I’d like to think all our contributing writers could live forever, they obviously can’t. It has taken me time to accept that these people will contribute to the Newberry News for a while, then step away for one reason or another.
Opinion and inspirational writer Donna Bergman moved to Arkansas.
Student writer Caitlynn Canfield graduated and moved to Wisconsin.
Former Tahquamenon Area Schools Public Library Director Brian Freitag took a different job and no longer writes book recommendations for us.
Other writers write very infrequently, or less frequently than they used to. Some photographers have left; others have taken their place.
Though I’ve only listed people who no longer contribute to the newspaper, there are so many writers that still do contribute, or are newly on the scene here.
What I see now is that the community members who contribute to the Newberry News do so for a season of their life, which is also a new season for the Newberry News. We appreciate them all so much.
Most contributors to the newspaper write for free. They’re often retirees with time on their hands and generous hearts. When they share what they know and what they’ve seen, we learn from their perspective. Hoogterp’s insights sometimes blew my mind. Sometimes the pieces have been hilariously funny; Donna Bergman and Posts from the Coast writer Susie Zag have made me laugh out loud.
I’m thrilled and impressed any time someone is willing to publicly share their writing or photographs. It takes nerve to attach your name to a piece of work and send it out for public consumption.
Local and freelance contributors add so much “community” to this small newspaper, and that is our best feature. Our best issues, in my opinion, have many different bylines in them – the short partial sentence below the headline — “By Susie Zag”, for example — that tells you who wrote the piece. One time I counted 17 bylines in a single issue, and I was thrilled.
I hope you feel welcome to suggest your own story idea or even offer to write one yourself. A man in Florida who used to live up here is currently working on a data-driven piece that we look forward to sharing. And just yesterday, a young writer stopped in to inquire about writing; expect to see her byline sometime soon, too.
Farewell, Dr. Dake, and thank you for writing. We learned so much from you.
