| Remembering
Peggy Vetter |
| Peggy D. Vetter, the founder of The Herndon Observer, was
memorialized on Sept. 9 with a plaque in Herndon's memorial
garden in front of Town Hall. |
| Peggy was more than just a newspaper editor and publisher,
but a true believer and supporter in the town and in its people.
On Sunday she was honored, and she will be forever remembered,
for those attributes. |
| Peggy started the Herndon Observer in 1976, and in 1990
my wife, Betsy, and I bought The Observer Newspapers from
Peggy. She continued to work for the newspapers until shortly
before her death in November 2000. |
| When Peggy Vetter and I first met more than a decade ago,
we knew immediately we had at least a couple of things in
commonäour love for newspapers and our love for journalism.
Hardly a day would go by that Peggy and I would not talk about
our experiences in a profession that both of us knew bound
so many people together. |
| Ink in your veins. |
| Waxed pieces of paper on the bottom of your shoes. |
| Young reporters and old saws who stayed out too late. |
| Two-fingered typists banging out a story on deadline. |
| Phone calls at 3 a.m. |
| Cigarette smoke and a drink after work. |
| Chasing fire trucks and cop cars with an old camera you
just hoped was loaded with film. |
| Town folks who just wanted to shoot the breeze and politicians
who just wanted to shoot you. |
| Red eyes. Sore feet. A stiff back. And being tired, always
so tired. |
| Will the night ever come soon enough? |
| It was Peggy's boundless energy that drove so many of us
who worked with her to try harder, think sharper, write better
and listen more. She taught us all not to ever forget that
people actually read the stuff you publish in your newspaper. |
| Peggy was surprised that people read her stories, and surprised
when they didn't. She had little tolerance for people who
weren't up on the news. |
| "It was in The Observer," I heard her say more than once
to a caller who wondered why we hadn't reported the results
of a swim meet, the dog who bit the little boy, the Eagle
Scout, the Rotary award, or the fire. |
| "It was in The Observer two weeks ago," she would tell them.
Peggy had a memory that made up for my lack of one. She could
recall facts, names, faces and places from over the past 25
years at the drop of a hat. |
| But it was more than her love for journalism that brought
her to founding The Herndon Observer in 1976. It was her desire
to help a community to congeal, to grow, to give people a
way of talking to one another, and to comfort the afflicted
and to afflict the comfortable. |
| Actually Peggy did little to afflict the comfortable, but
she did make them responsible for their words and their actions.
She did that simply by reporting their deeds in The Observer,
or, if necessary, by not reporting them in The Observer. And
to many, that was the worst affliction. |
| Peggy's mission in reporting was never high-handed, never
back-stabbing, never vengeful or hurtful, but rather it was
consistent, fair and complete. |
| There's an old saying in newspapering that a journalist
needs to know where every sparrow falls, and then to have
the keen knowledge to know whether to report on it or not.
Peggy was a master at knowing where the sparrows fell, and
and what sparrows were worth reporting. |
| Personally, I know what Peggy misses the most around here: |
| She misses the helicopters after a bank robbery and the
sirens speeding to a crash. She misses ribbon cuttings at
a newly opened bank and interviewing the new principal at
the elementary school. |
| She misses the wonderful diversity of the population, the
blacks and the Hispanics, the Pakistanis and the Koreans,
and all the immigrants trying to make a new life in America. |
| She misses Rotary terribly and she misses her great friends
in the Herndon Police Department. |
| She misses Charlie Waddell and Mary Ingram, and she misses
Berkley Green and Haley Smith. |
| And we miss Peggy. We miss her at The Observer, at Rotary,
at chamber affairs and county fairs, at grand openings and
at ignoble endings, at fires and crashes, at all things. |
| But she has left us all in good stead. She built and left
with us with a foundation upon which we can all build the
future. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
