I'm off to Missouri

I need to say thank you again -- still

A few months ago, a man with whom I went to school (at the then-Missouri Southern State College-now-University) and with whom I worked on that school’s college paper (The Chart) asked if I’d fly to Joplin to be inducted into the Chart Hall of Fame.

I am now at the point in my life when I’m inducted into halls of fame, which is cool. I normally decline awards because really, not that many are offered to me, and what’s the point, but everything I ever needed to know about journalism, I learned in the office of The Chart at the foot of Richard Massa, scariest journalism professor, ever.

Himself, Richard Massa

I never saw him smile much, but there was always the ghost of a grin playing around the lower half of his face.

I don’t know how he did what he did, but he ignited in a bunch of us hillbillies a deep love of the First Amendment and the free press. It was always my plan to attend MSSC for two years, and at the end of that time, I transferred (after serving a rather wan stint as the Chart’s managing editor) to a much larger, better-known school but honestly? I learned what I needed to know at MSSC. Others who stayed made journalism their life’s work and if you sat us all down, I’m sure we’d blame that lifelong love/mania at least in part on Mr. Massa, who asked me to call him Richard after I left college, but I never quite could.

We were a band of misfits at the Chart. Some of us were aiming for television, some for radio, and some for newspapers, which were — we were told — dying. No matter. We loved the industry so much we thought we could save it. We babysat one another’s children, slept with each other, shared drugs, argued, and laughed ourselves silly, and along the way, we built up our skills and spread out across the country.

(I babysat, argued, and laughed; I was the town virgin, even at the college newspaper and I regret that very much.)

Mr. Massa died in 2019 but to say his legacy lives on doesn’t begin to address his impact. He was relentless in asking of us our best. He was sparse with praise, but quick with constructive criticism. I would have walked through fire for him mainly because I was convinced he would do the same for me.

I find myself now in a job similar to his, the academic advisor to a college newspaper with a band of merry misfits for whom I would also walk through fire. My impact will not match that of Mr. Massa’s, but I can try. So I’m spending no small amount of money to pick up a plaque that’s a time zone away, but mostly? I’m flying out so that I can once again — in public and out loud — thank Mr. Massa. He changed my life.