136 years ago, print shop owners and brothers John and Daniel Harrington created a weekly newspaper for the Mill City, and dubbed it the Lowell Sun, a newspaper that would evolve into the only major daily newspaper to cover the comings and going of Lowell and all of its neighboring communities. For decades, the paper remained in the hands of John Harrington's descendants, the family Costello. Throughout most of the 20th century, it would still be owned and operated by the Costello family before it was sold to the MediaNews Group in 1997.
On Sunday afternoon, the members of the Fourth Estate that were part of the enormous Lowell Sun extended family gathered together for a Fall Classic usually reserved for high schools - a reunion, this one for of an army of employees who worked at the Sun when it was under the control of the Costello family.
The historic gathering took place at Lenzi's in Dracut, and was a trip down memory lane for generations of folks who worked in ye days of olde in the editorial newsroom, advertising department, compsitor's room and all of the other business branches of operations at the paper.
For some of us - ye humble blogger included - we've been gone from the halls of print for quite some time, In my case, 19 years. There were lots on hand whose departure from the Sun predated even my exodus from 15 Kearney Square to the Lowell PD.
But everyone's individual paths and stories all converged in the function hall yesterday, with proceeds from the event going toward the Lowell Sun Charities.
Throughout the room, with slide shows of employee pics scrolling in the background, folks who haven't seen one another in some cases of 30 years or more, gathered to remember their days together in Kearney Square.
While I still keep in touch with quite a healthy number of folks through various means, including workplace interactions, and especially social media wonderworks such as Facebook and Twitter, it was refreshing to catch up with what folks have been doing for the past few decades.
For me, it was a chance to meet up with a group of people who were all in the newsroom when I started there as a young co-op student from UMass Lowell at the ridiculously naive age of 19 on Valentine's Day, 1984. All of the people here in this pic, were there when I started, and several made me feel welcome right from the get-go.
From left to right, former Sports Editor Ron Driscoll, current Managing Editor Kris Pisarik, fellow movie-buff and former education reporter Kathi Scrizzi-Driscoll, former higher ed and hospital reporter Patti McCafferty (now a colleague over at UMass Lowell), and to my left, Enterprise Editor Chris Scott, who was my newsroom neighbor for my whole stint at the paper.
Once upon a time, if it can be believed in these days of pared-back resources and dwindling hard-copy readers, the Sun printed seven editions and had satellite offices at the State House, in Washington, D.C., in colonial Bedford, and in downtown Ayer, home of its Nashoba edition. Here's a reunion of three of the stalwart reporters who passed through the unforgettable Ayer Bureau - Mike O'Connell, Pat Montminy (who worked side-by-side with me on the most horrific case of my career), and Peter Ward.
Huge props to the team who pulled the event together - Nancy McKenna, Debbie Linnehan, Carmen Bellerose, and Sheila Keough O'Brien
Kendall Wallace, who started at the paper nearly five decades ago, took the opportunity to recall some of its earlier days, when the newspaper business was the premiere delivery of news before everyone required the instant information of the internet.
He passed the torch to former Editor Jack Costello, who, in an emotional thank you, said how much he regretted ever selling the paper, and would leap at the opportunity to buy it back and immerse himself back into the biz.
Outside, some of the Costello siblings reunited with Sun management past and present, in the form of current Editor, right, Jim Campanini.
Patti and I had a chance to thank Kendall, the guy who first hired us into the business, and started us on our professional careers which have followed wandering paths in the ensuing decades, with both of us landing in higher education posts
And while I don't know that I can call it a reunion since I still work with her in the trenches at Middlesex Community College, I got a chance to hang out with one of my favorite peeps, Nancy Roberts - literally the first face I saw when I walked into the newsroom for the first time ever for my interview to land the job. She welcomed me then with a friendly hello and then watched all of our collective backs for years to follow.
Love it, hate it, no one can deny the role the Sun has played in the tableau of the Merrimack Valley that has unfolded over the last century. It was fun seeing old friends. I only wish more of the folks that Dick Cook buzzed into the newsroom over those years were able to join us for the reunion. They literally span the globe nowadays. Maybe next time they pull one of these together, we can see some of the other faces who helped the Sun make history and shaped the news for millions.
