It was on June 22, 1922, that a small weekly newspaper, called Magee's Independent, made its debut in Albuquerque. Few gave it much chance of survival, being in competition with two daily newspapers, The Albuquerque Morning Journal and The Albuquerque Herald. But through the energy and perseverance of its crusading owner and editor, Carl C. Magee, the newspaper he founded in 1922 has continued in an unbroken line for more than 80 years, gradually evolving into The Albuquerque Tribune of today.

·        It was not the intention of Carlton Cole "Carl" Magee to enter the newspaper business when he arrived in Albuquerque with his family in 1919. The 46-year-old Iowa native, who for 17 years had enjoyed a successful law practice in Oklahoma City, made the move to a higher and drier climate for the health of his wife, Grace, who had a lung ailment.

·        Once settled in Albuquerque, he decided to remain, and believing that the city of 15,000 had little need for another lawyer, he used the opportunity to pursue a dream. As he recalled later: "For many years I had the idea in my head that some day after I had made my pile, I would try to run a newspaper that would tell the whole truth about everything as near as I could get the truth. Then I would see what would happen."

·        It did not take him long to see what would happen.

·        Magee set his sights on The Albuquerque Morning Journal, the state's largest newspaper with a circulation of about 7,000, which had gone through a succession of ownerships since its founding in 1880. He learned the morning paper had been purchased in 1918 by U.S. Sen. Albert Bacon Fall and a group of his wealthy Republican friends and supporters for the sole purpose of promoting Fall's reelection to the Senate. Once Fall was reelected, the owners had no further use for the paper.

·        Magee visited Fall at the senator's ranch at Three Rivers, in Otero County, and negotiated the purchase of the Journal. Fall, who had a $25,000 interest in the paper, told Magee he was willing to sell because he was broke, owed back taxes on the ranch, and needed the money for ranch improvements.

·        Fall, a Kentucky native, had lived in New Mexico since 1883, and had been a prominent Democrat during New Mexico's territorial period before switching to the Republican Party and becoming the leader of the Republican political machine that exercised great influence in the state. Magee, a liberal Republican, sat in stunned amazement as Fall lectured him on the inner workings of machine politics in New Mexico.

·        In 1920, Magee bought the Journal at 310 W. Gold for $115,000, spent another $20,000 on a new press, and in assuming control of the paper inherited an energetic young reporter, Clinton P. Anderson, who years later was to become a U.S. senator from New Mexico and secretary of agriculture under President Harry Truman. Immediately, the two began investigating political corruption in New Mexico.

·        Magee said he quickly learned that powerful political and business interests dominated New Mexico for selfish purposes and at the expense of impoverished citizens.

·        "I found out, in a little while, that state officials went unchallenged," he recalled later. "They did as they pleased without criticism.

·        "Prisoners were cheated and starved of food. State institutions were run negligently. Public money was deposited in the banks, and state officials took the interest and put it into their own pockets."

·        Magee began his journalistic career by attacking the state Land Office, writing that money intended for the public schools was being diverted instead to Fall's political machine. This brought an angry Fall storming into the newspaper office, shouting: "Lay off the Land Office, or I'll put you on the rack and break you."

·        Magee also learned five previous editors had been given the choice of going to jail, or shutting up and leaving the state, and that all had chosen the latter alternative. But Magee, a tall, rangy man with blue eyes and a square jaw, would not be intimidated, and kept exposing corruption in spite of death threats and hysical assaults.

·        Early in 1921, Fall resigned from the Senate to accept an appointment as secretary of the Interior Department under Republican President Warren G. Harding. Magee, who switched his party affiliation to become a Democrat, soon learned that Fall was spending large sums of money to expand and build improvements on his Three Rivers ranch. Where, Magee wondered, did Fall, who said he was broke, get all the money?

·        Magee's initial investigations into the matter led eventually to what has become known as the notorious Teapot Dome scandal, in which Fall was accused of accepting hefty bribes from oil magnates Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny in exchange for private leases on protected U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and Elk Hills in California.

·        He insisted until his dying day that the nearly half-million dollars he received from the two oil producers consisted of loans, rather than bribes. Fall, who resigned his Cabinet post in 1923, was convicted in 1929 of accepting a $100,000 bribe from Doheny. He was sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $100,000. In ill health, Fall served nine months of his sentence in the New Mexico Penitentiary at Santa Fe, and was never able to pay the fine. He died in El Paso in 1944.

·        Doheny, oddly enough, was found innocent of charges that he bribed Fall.

·        Magee's ownership of The Albuquerque Morning Journal, meanwhile, came to an end in April, 1922, when financial institutions, pressured by Fall's political machine, put the squeeze on him by calling his notes and refusing to renew his loans. To avoid bankruptcy, he sold the Journal for $200,000 to the First National Bank of Albuquerque. But two months later he was back in business by founding a weekly newspaper.

·        Establishing offices on the second floor of the Chester T. French Building on the southwest corner of Fourth and Gold, the site now occupied by the Simms Building, Magee began publication of Magee's Independent on June 22, 1922. Borrowing a phrase from Dante, the early Italian poet, Magee adopted the slogan, "Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way," printed beneath the sketch of a rising sun.

·        Magee's Independent started life as a weekly paper, and continued so until February 6, 1923, when it was issued briefly as a semi-weekly. On March 23, 1923, the name of the newspaper was changed to The New Mexico State Tribune, and a few weeks later, on April 5, it became a daily newspaper.

·        Magee's continuing attacks on political corruption helped result in Democrats replacing most Republicans for state office in the 1922 fall elections. This drew the ire of powerful, old-guard Republican leaders in San Miguel County, including District Judge David J. Leahy and Secundino Romero of Las Vegas, N.M. They devised a scheme in an effort to silence him. In June 1923, Magee was ordered to stand jury trial in Judge Leahy's court in Las Vegas on a trumped up charge that he had printed a libelous statement about a New Mexico Supreme Court justice. Although the justice testified for the defense that he did not believe he had been libeled, and had made no complaint, Judge Leahy instructed the jury to return a guilty verdict, and then sentenced Magee to serve from 12 to 18 months in the New Mexico Penitentiary.

·        Immediately, New Mexico Gov. James F. Hinkle, a Democrat, pardoned Magee and set aside his conviction and sentence, calling the proceedings "a blot on the state and a disgrace to the good people thereof."

·        An angry Judge Leahy then found Magee in contempt of court for disregarding his orders not to write about the trial, and for calling the judge "corrupt" in public print. He ordered Magee to serve a one-year prison sentence and pay a $4,050 fine, but once again Gov. Hinkle pardoned him immediately and set aside the sentence and fine.

·        Magee continued to voice his strong opinions in his front page newspaper columns entitled "Turning on the Light" - shedding light on many questionable activities that some wanted kept in the dark. Impressed by Magee's determination and spirit, the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain bought the New Mexico State Tribune on Sept. 24, 1923, retained Magee as editor, and adopted his "Give Light" slogan for all Scripps-Howard newspapers, later printing it under the sketch of a lighthouse.

·        In 1925, the New Mexico State Tribune was moved a short distance west to a new plant on the southeast corner of Fifth and Gold. While visiting Las Vegas on August 1925, Magee was being interviewed by a reporter for the Las Vegas Optic in the lobby of the Meadows Hotel when Judge Leahy entered the lobby. Leahy, a Rough Rider veteran of the Spanish-American War, assaulted Magee without warning, knocking him down and kicking him, breaking several of his ribs.

·        Magee, prone on the floor, drew a .25 caliber revolver from his pocket, which he carried for self defense, and fired two shots at his assailant, one of them striking Leahy in the arm. Unfortunately, one of the shots struck and killed an innocent bystander, John B. Lassater, a State Highway Department official. Magee was acquitted of a manslaughter charge, but he was haunted for the rest of his life by the knowledge that he had killed an innocent man.

·        Magee remained editor of the New Mexico State Tribune until the close of 1927, when Scripps-Howard transferred him to the editorship of the Oklahoma City News. In 1935, while serving as editor of the Oklahoma City newspaper, Magee was instrumental in inventing the parking meter, marketing the new device as president of the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company. Carl Magee, who died in Oklahoma City in 1946, was inducted posthumously into the New Mexico Press Association Hall of Fame.

·        Succeeding Carl Magee as editor of the New Mexico State Tribune in early 1928 was 29-year-old Edward H. Shaffer, the newspaper's managing editor, whom Magee had hired away from the Albuquerque Evening Herald some years before. Shaffer proved to be a worthy successor to the departing editor.

·        Born in St. John, Kan., and reared on a farm near Dodge City, Shaffer enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 and was among the first American troops sent to France during World War I. He was seriously wounded twice in action, and his hometown Kansas newspapers published his obituary when it was falsely reported that he had been killed.

·        Following his military service, he was graduated early in 1923 from the Northwestern University School of Journalism, and worked as a reporter for the Lima (Ohio) News for about six months before moving to Albuquerque and becoming a reporter for the Albuquerque Herald, where his journalistic skills came to Magee's attention.

·        Tall, erect, dark-eyed and dark-haired, E.H. Shaffer, known as "Shafe" to his many friends, was a fiercely independent and honest man whose hard-hitting editorials and personal columns displayed his sharp wit, satire and gentle art of ridicule. His lighter side was particular evident in his personal columns, "Ezra Eggs" and "The Pi Line." Shaffer's early staff of reporters included George Fitzpatrick, who wrote a series of newspaper columns on New Mexico history titled "Off the Beaten New Mexico Path." Fitpatrick left the newspaper to become a longtime editor of New Mexico Magazine, the first of three former Tribune reporters to edit the state magazine, the others, decades later, being Sheila Tryk and V.B. Price.

·        Early in 1933, while the nation was gripped by the Great Depression, the New Mexico State Tribune, owned by Scripps-Howard, and the Albuquerque Journal, which had been owned since 1926 by Thomas M. Pepperday, entered into a joint operating agreement in order to survive. Under this agreement, finalized on February 20, 1933, both the morning and evening papers, while retaining separate ownerships, shared facilities under a single roof in a building the Tribune had occupied since 1925 at 440 W. Gold, on the southeast corner of Fifth and Gold. The Journal moved there from its former location at 310 W. Gold.

·        At the same time, the Albuquerque Publishing Company was formed to operate the mechanical, business, advertising and circulation departments for both the morning and and evening papers. The Journal had been publishing both morning and evening editions, and the Albuquerque Evening Journal was merged with the New Mexico State Tribune and published under a new name, The Albuquerque Tribune. This joint operating agreement, known as the Albuquerque Plan, later was followed by other competing newspapers over the nation. Shaffer initially opposed the joint operating agreement, which remains in place to this day, writing that he did not want anything to do with "those scoundrels" on the morning paper. Disturbed by the fact that many readers now thought that The Tribune and the Journal were jointly owned, he made it clear in his editorials that the two newspapers were in separate ownerships and in competition, The Tribune, for instance, supporting creation of the middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, which the Journal opposed.

·        Shaffer was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1933 for a stinging editorial he wrote criticizing New Mexico Gov. Arthur Seligman for declaring martial law in McKinley County and sending the National Guard to Gallup to deal with striking coal miners.

·        One of Shaffer's greatest contributions to the history of The Tribune was his hiring in 1934 of George Baldwin from the Silver City Enterprise. Texas-born Baldwin, who grew up in Montana, was a dedicated and hard-working newsman who helped to steer The Tribune on a steady course for more than 60 years in a variety of supervisory positions.

·        It was Shaffer who lured his good friend, Ernie Pyle, famed Scripps-Howard columnist and war correspondent, to Albuquerque, where Pyle established his last home, now the Ernie Pyle Public Library at 900 Girard SE.

·        America's entry into World War II in 1941 proved a traumatic experience for Shaffer, as it brought to mind the agonies he had suffered and witnessed in Europe during World War I. As the war progressed, and the casualty lists began rolling in, he began drinking heavily, his health deteriorated, and he was only a shadow of his former self when he died in Albuquerque on April 3, 1944, survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.

·        His friend, Ernie Pyle, was killed in the Pacific theater of war the following year.

·        Since his death, the New Mexico Press Association has honored Shaffer's memory each year by bestowing E.H. Shaffer Awards for outstanding journalistic endeavors.

·        During E.H. Shaffer's final and lingering illness, the task of getting out the newspaper each day fell upon the shoulders of his managing editor, Dan Burrows, whom Shaffer had hired as a reporter in 1928. Burrows was named editor of The Tribune on May 26, 1944, following Shaffer's death, and served as editor for the next 22 years, the longest period of any Tribune editor to date.

·        Born in Indianapolis on January 17, 1898, Daniel Chapel Burrows arrived in New Mexico as a child in 1905 and spent his formative years working on farms and ranches at Eastern Plains, near Roswell. He was graduated from Roswell High School in 1918, and from New Mexico Military Institute in 1920, where he edited the school annual - assisted by Paul Horgan, later a Pulitzer Prize winning author, and Peter Hurd, later a famous artist.

·        While serving as assistant secretary of the Roswell Chamber of Commerce in 1922 he became a correspondent for the Albuquerue Herald and the Amarillo News. In 1923, while a student at the University of New Mexico, he was employed by the Albuquerque Journal as a sports writer and reporter, remaining with the Journal until 1928 when he joined the Tribune staff as a sports writer and reporter. He was promoted to managing editor in 1931.

·        A typical westerner, who often sported a Stetson hat, Dan Burrows was a gentle, soft-spoken man with a homespun sense of humor that became evident to Tribune readers in his daily editorial page column, The Pony Express, consisting of humorous remarks on news events and other subjects that came to his mind. As an example, in referring to a train wreck in Arkansas in which some circus animals had escaped, Burrows wrote:

·        "Sheriff William Tidwell said that a leopard was spotted about 100 yards from the scene of the wreck that permitted the animals to escape. He would have been just as spotted at 50 yards or 200 yards, sheriff."

·        A great lover of animals, Burrows owned dogs and several quarter horses, and was a devoted fan of horse racing events. Those interests were often reflected in the news and editorial pages of the Tribune. He also was an avid collector of fine Navajo rugs and Southwestern paintings.

·        Informality was a Burrows trademark, and even the youngest reporters called him Dan - never Mr. Burrows - and to some he became a father figure who listened empathetically to their work or domestic problems.

·        In sharp contrast to the editor's easygoing style was that of his longtime political reporter, A.C. "Tony" DeCola, a tough veteran of Scripps-Howard newspapers in his native Ohio whose gruff nature intimidated many New Mexico politicians as well as some young Tribune reporters. Tony was notorious for calling politicos at their homes at the break of dawn and dragging comments out of them before they were wide awake.

·        DeCola, whose tough attitude concealed a soft heart, retired from the Tribune in 1971 after 31 years with the newspaper. He died in 1988 at the age of 87.

·        During the 1950s, Burrows hired at least four young reporters who eventually went on to become editors of major newspapers and a national magazine, not to mention one or two who went to jail.

·        Harry Moskos, employed on a part-time basis in 1953 while he was still in high school, rose through the Tribune ranks as city and managing editor and later became editor of two Scripps-Howard newspapers, the El Paso Herald-Post and the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel.

·        Lionel Linder, a Tribune reporter from 1956 to 1958, later became editor of The Detroit News, and was editor of The Commercial Appeal, the Scripps-Howard newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee, when he was killed by a drunken driver in a traffic accident in Memphis on New Year's Eve, 1992.

·        Ralph Looney, hired by Burrows as a reporter in 1953, later became editor of The Tribune and of the Rocky Mountain News, the Scripps-Howard newspaper in Denver. Gerald Moore, a Tribune reporter in the early 1960s, later became a senior editor of Life magazine.

·        Burrows guided The Tribune through Albuquerque's post-war boom that saw rapid expansion of the city's population and newspaper circulation. Albuquerque's population, which stood at about 35,000 in 1940, grew to an estimated 135,000 by 1954, and the expanding Tribune and Journal could no longer operate efficiently in the cramped quarters they had jointly occupied since 1933 at Fifth and Gold SW.

·        In April, 1954, the two newspapers moved several blocks into a new and modern plant that the Albuquerque Publishing Company had erected in the 700 block of Silver S.W. Until that time the Tribune's editorial staff had never exceeded a dozen editors and reporters, and rapid expansion of the staff now became possible in the much larger quarters.

·        In addition to the editorial departments, the new three-story plant housed new and improved mechanical departments, business, advertising and circulation departments, and bureau offices of the Associated Press and United Press International. The plant was enlarged in 1962 with a new addition.

·        In the political field, Burrows' principal target as editor of The Tribune was the City Hall regime of former New Mexico Gov. Clyde Tingley, longtime chairman of the Albuqueraue City Commission and self-styled "mayor" of the city.

·        Believing Tingley was not progressive enough to guide the destinies of the rapidly growing city, Burrows used editorial and news pages to needle the veteran politician and to support a slate of "reform" candidates for election to the city government. Tingley, while being ousted from power, refused to even speak to Tribune reporters when asked for comments.

·        Dan Burrows retired as editor of The Tribune on June 1, 1966, after a newspaper career spanning 43 years - 38 of them with The Tribune and 22 as its editor. During his years as editor, The Tribune won numerous community and public service awards and many E.H. Shaffer Awards for journalistic excellence.

·        Burrows died in Albuquerque on March 30, 1971, at the age of 73, two years after the death of his second wife, Mary. He was survived by his son, William Burrows, and four grandchildren.

·        Replacing the rather easygoing Dan Burrows as editor of The Albuquerque Tribune in 1966 was George Carmack, a human dynamo and positive thinker who stood 6-feet-4 inches, weighed 215 pounds, and who possessed a booming voice that reverberated throughout the newsroom. A Scripps-Howard veteran and former Army lieutenant colonel, Carmack immediately took charge and steered The Tribune on new courses with military precision tempered with good humor.

·        Born in Troy, Tennessee, on February 20, 1907, Carmack was graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1927 with a degree in English. He began his newspaper career with the Memphis Evening Appeal in 1928, and became editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar in 1930. He was named editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel in 1937, serving until the beginning of World War II when he entered the U.S. Army as an enlisted man, served in the European and Pacific theaters, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff during the occupation of Japan.

·        Following the war, he was named editor of The Houston Press, a Scripps-Howard newspaper, holding that position until the newspaper closed in 1964. He was on the staff of the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance in Washington, D.C., covering the Pentagon, when Scripps-Howard appointed him editor of The Tribune, a position he held for nearly seven years.

·        A newcomer to New Mexico, Carmack set his goals for The Tribune soon after assuming the editorship on June 1, 1966. Calling New Mexico "America's best-kept secret," he embarked on a newspaper campaign of promoting industrial development and tourism, coining and using the motto "New Mexico Climate: Good for People, Good for Business."

·        Entering civic affairs, he served as president of the Albuquerque Development Service, later Albuquerque Economic Development Inc., and served on the boards of the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, Community Council and United Fund. Some critics complained Carmack wanted to "pave" New Mexico and establish steel mills and shopping malls in national forests, but nothing could be further from the truth. He came to love New Mexico's unspoiled landscapes and natural attractions, and counted U.S. Forest Service officials among his many friends and supporters. Carmack began writing a popular weekly column detailing the motor trips he ad his wife, Bonnie, made to all corners of the state.

·        Traveling in a four-wheel drive vehicle, the Carmacks explored little-known byways through mountains, forests and plains, visiting many natural and historic landmarks. Each trip proved to be a new and exciting experience for George and Bonnie Carmack.

·        Carmack soon became a popular after-dinner speaker, during which he extolled New Mexico's natural beauties, climate, history and culture. (He confided to one of his reporters, with a wide grin, that his talks promoting New Mexico were nearly identical to talks he had previously given promoting Texas, merely changing the names of cities and landmarks to fit the new locale.) Through the Tribune pages, Carmack pushed successfully to change the name of the Albuquerque International Airport to Albuquerque International Sunport.

·        The New Mexico Chamber of Commerce honored Carmack with its first Querencia Award, symbolizing his love for the state.

·        Carmack retired as editor of The Tribune on February 28, 1973, and before nightfall he and his wife were on their way back to Texas with all their belongings. The 66-year-old Carmack was not ready to enjoy a life of leisure, however, and he joined the staff of the San Antonio Express and News.

·        As a travel writer for the Texas newspaper, George, along with his wife, Bonnie, a photographer, extended their travels worldwide, visiting such distant places as Siberia, the Amazon rain forests and Australia. They furnished more than 800 travel columns to the paper from 1973 to 1992.

·        George Carmack died in San Antonio on October 27, 1995, at the age of 88, his typewriter and notebook by his side. His wife, Bonnie, had died two years earlier at the age of 86. Prior to his death, Carmack's frequent letters to various Tribune staffers revealed he still had fond memories of his life and work in New Mexico.

·        Ralph Looney, a veteran and award-winning Tribune journalist, left his position as assistant managing editor on February 28, 1973, to succeed George Carmack as editor of The Tribune.

·        Under Looney's leadership, during the next seven years, The Tribune continued and expanded its aggressive and prize-winning news coverage.

·        A native of Lexington, Ky., born June 2, 1924, Looney began his journalism career in 1941 as an office boy at the Lexington Herald while he was still in high school, later working part-time as a sports writer. In 1942, he worked in the FBI offices in Washington, D.C. While attending the University of Kentucky, he joined the Lexington Leader in 1944 as a reporter and photographer. He was graduated from the university in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in arts.

·        Moving to Albuquerque, Looney was employed by The Tribune in 1953 as a city hall reporter, and he remained on the newspaper staff until 1955 when he moved to St. Louis to join the staff of the St. Louis Globe Democrat. He was chief copy editor of the St. Louis newspaper when Dan Burrows hired him back in 1956 as city editor of The Tribune, a post he held until 1968 when he was promoted to assistant managing editor.

·        During his career with The Tribune, Looney won many state and national awards for a variety of newspaper articles and projects.

·        These included the New Mexico Medal of Merit in 1969 for a Tribune project he conceived and carried out of entertaining New Mexico Air Guardsmen in Southeast Asia with sound films of their families back home; the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 1970 for his series of Tribune articles detailing poverty on the Navajo Reservation; and the George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge for a Tribune editorial.

·        During his spare time at The Tribune, Looney wrote and illustrated a book on New Mexico ghost towns, "Haunted Highways," first published in 1969 by Hastings House, and later reprinted by the University of New Mexico Press. He contributed an article to national Geographic on the Navajo Reservation, and an article to Atlantic Monthly on artist Georgia O'Keeffe of Abiquiu.

·        As Tribune editor, he wrote a political satire column, "Feedlot Joe," which appeared weekly and featuring a fictional character giving his home-spun observations on New Mexico politics. A founding member of the State Film Commission, Looney helped promote Hollywood film production in New Mexico in Tribune editorials and news articles.

·        It was while Looney was serving as editor in the 1970s that The Tribune took the lead in investigating reports of a vast buried treasure in gold and artifacts at isolated Victorio Peak in a closed area of the White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico.

·        The long series of Tribune articles, which soon drew national attention, led to a major and scientific treasure hunting expedition to the peak in 1977. Although nothing of value was found during the excavations, the buried treasure search has continued periodically to this day.

·        Looney was editor of The Tribune until September 12, 1980, when he was transferred to the editorship of the Rocky Mountain News, the Scripps-Howard newspaper in Denver, where a sudden vacancy had occurred. He remained editor of this major newspaper until 1989, when he retired and moved back to Albuquerque. Looney died in 2000.

·        Since his retirement he has written and illustrated another book, "O'Keeffe and Me: A Treasured Friendship," published in 1995 by the University Press of Colorado. Looney and his wife were close friends of the famed artist for many years.

·        Replacing Ralph Looney as editor of The Albuquerque Tribune on September 12, 1980, was 55-year-old Bill Tanner, managing editor of the Cleveland Press, a Scripps-owned evening paper that was closing its doors after many years of operation. During the six years that Tanner served as Tribune editor, the newspaper experienced major changes, including the move to its present location.

·        Tanner began his newspaper career in the 1940s as an office boy for the Cleveland Press, remaining with that Ohio newspaper for 37 years as reporter, assistant city editor, city editor and managing editor.

·        He was a graduate of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and during his years with the Cleveland Press he won a number of journalism awards.

·        Tanner arrived in Albuquerque with his wife, Rusty Brown, a syndicated columnist who wrote about women's affairs. They were the parents of two grown sons.

·        During the summer of 1985, The Albuquerque Tribune and the Albuquerque Journal left the plant at Seventh and Silver SW that they had occupied jointly since 1954 and moved miles north to the new and much larger plant that the two newspapers now occupy in the Journal Center at 7777 Jefferson N.E., near Interstate 25 in the northern part of the city.

·        The move brought other changes as the publishing company entered the computer age. Typewriters, long important and familiar newsroom fixtures, disappeared entirely, replaced by computerized video display terminals. Another newspaper tradition, the hot lead Linotype machines, no longer graced the computerized back shop.

·        Also gone were newsroom ash trays as no-smoking rules went into effect.

·        As editor of The Tribune, Tanner was faced with the problem of declining circulation and readership, common to most evening newspapers in the nation, and the exodus of some editorial staff members who followed Looney to the Denver newspaper.

·        In efforts to bolster readership, Tanner experimented with a number of style and format changes, publicizing what he called the "New Tribune," with community-oriented features. Tanner, an avid golfer, took an active role in community affairs.

·        Through The Tribune, he established Distinguished Teacher and Beautiful Albuquerque awards, and helped to establish the New Mexico Health Fairs and Save Your Sight eye clinics. Tanner retired on Dec. 1, 1986, and he and his wife moved to Florida.

·        Bringing a youthful perspective to The Albuquerque Tribune was Tim Gallagher, who at the age of 30 succeeded Bill Tanner as Tribune editor on January 1, 1987. During Gallagher's seven years as editor, The Tribune experienced many innovations and changes.

·        Born in Brooklyn, Gallagher moved to Albuquerque with his parents in 1972, attended St. Pius X High School, and was graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1978, majoring in English and journalism. He worked part-time for The Tribune while attending the university, and later worked full time as a reporter and assistant city editor.

·        Gallagher moved to El Paso in 1981 to accept a position as city editor of the El Paso Herald Post, and was managing editor of that Scripps-Howard newspaper when he returned to Albuquerque to become one of The Tribune's youngest editors.

·        Always optimistic, ever cheerful, Gallagher embarked on a campaign to bring a fresh look to The Tribune in the face of declining circulation and increasing subscription and newsstand prices. In 1989, he inaugurated a youth-oriented entertainment section, called TGIT, which appeared Thursdays in a magazine format. It was replaced in 1993 by Wild Life, an entertainment guide that included a "Gripe Line" in which readers were invited to sound off.

·        The Electronic Trib, a computer edition of the newspaper, went online late in 1990. In 1992, The Tribune launched its first major advertising blitz for new subscribers, making use of TV and radio commercials, billboards and bumper stickers, with the slogan "I Get It." As part of the campaign, a new "blue box" Tribune logo made its appearance on the front Page.

·        Gallagher's proudest moment as editor came in 1994 when The Tribune was awarded its first and only Pulitzer Prize, for national reporting, as a result of reporter Eileen Welsome's 1993 series "The Plutonium Experiment," detailing how government scientists injected plutonium into unsuspecting patients in the late 1940s.

·        Tribune readers became familiar with the domestic activities of Gallagher, his wife, Cheryl, and their three sons, through his weekly "Memo From the Editor" columns.

·        Shortly after reorganizing The Tribune's news staff in December, 1994, Gallagher was transferred to Ventura, Calif., as editor of the Star, a collection of five Scripps-Howard suburban newspapers with a combined circulation of 100,000.

·        Succeeding Tim Gallagher as editor of The Albuquerque Tribune on December 28, 1994, was 41-year-old Scott Ware, the eighth in the 75-year history of The Tribune. He was an editorial consultant for all Scripps-Howard newspapers when he was appointed editor of The Tribune. Born in Birmingham, Ala., Ware grew up in Meridian, Miss., and worked as a part-time reporter for the Meridian Star while he was still in high school. His first New Mexico experience came at the age of 14 when he visited the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron.

·        Ware was graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1975 with a bachelor's degree in journalism, and began his Scripps-Howard career that year as a college intern at the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tennessee, later rising through the ranks. From 1991-1993, he was managing editor and editor of the San Juan Star, Puerto Rico's only English language daily, which was sold by Scripps-Howard late in 1993.

·        In October 1996, Ware presided at newsroom ceremonies honoring two retired Tribune veterans, 87-year-old George Baldwin, and 71-year-old Carlos Salazar, at the same time dedicating The Tribune's conference room as the George Baldwin Conference Room.

·        Baldwin, honored for his 61 years of service as city, managing and associate editor and daily columnist, officially retired in 1980, but continued writing his "By George" column for the next 15 years.

·        Four months after the ceremonies, Baldwin died in an Albuquerque rest home on February 27, 1997, at the age of 88.

·        Carlos Salazar, a Navy veteran who began his Tribune employment in the late 1940s, was honored for his 50 years of service. He served for many years as a Tribune sports writer and sports editor, and after his retirement he continued to contribute articles and obituaries to The Tribune. He died in June 1998.

·        Ware left The Tribune in 2001 to become the editor of The Sun in Bremerton, Wash., also a Scripps paper.

·        The ninth editor was Kelly Gibbs Brewer, 43, a New Mexico native and the newspaper's first woman at the helm. She was appointed in August 2001.

·        Brewer was graduated from University of New Mexico in 1983, and began her career as a reporting intern at The Trib. Despite an occasional foray into other states and related lines of work, she was lured back to New Mexico where she worked in Albuquerque newspapers. At The Tribune she was a reporter, copy editor, news editor, assistant managing editor and managing editor.

·        Her focus for the newspaper was intense local coverage by local journalists, with superior design and photography.

·        Brewer left the Tribune in 2003 to become the editor of the Redding Record Searchlight, a Scripps newspaper in northern California.

·        On June 1, 2003, Albuquerque native Phill Casaus was picked to head The Trib. A former sports writer, columnist, city editor and managing editor, Casaus had a 25-year career in Albuquerque journalism at the time he took the position.

·        Casaus, 40, graduated from Sandia High School in 1981 and the University of New Mexico with a major in political science in 1986.

·        Casaus' aim was to maintain and expand The Trib's tradition as a newspaper with a flair in writing, photography, design and direction as readers' tastes evolve. With New Mexico roots that reach back to the 1600s, he is the newspaper's first Hispanic editor.

·        The Albuquerque Tribune, with an editorial staff of about 50 journalists, continues to enjoy a vibrant and profitable existence as one of the few daily evening newspapers remaining in the country.

        (Compiled by Tribune staff.)