GARY’S GLIMPSES COLUMN: Retirement beckons

(Here’s a funny anecdote: For years, people have been coming up to me and asking when am I going to retire. I’d tell them I enjoy what I do and they pay me to do it. Now, when people hear I’m retiring, they say, “You can’t do that.”)

Shortly after I was interviewed by then-editor Jay Tharinger, back in May 2000, and was hired by the Observer as a staff writer, I became the sports editor upon the departure of Craig Degener.

Since Rio Rancho High School opened in August 1997, the Observer’s revolving door of sports editors had each last one year: Scott Grover (1997-98), Myles Copeland (1998-99) and Degener, (1999-2000). Quick to spot a trend, I figured my tenure might also be a year.

After all, I had worked briefly for the Observer back in 1985-86, after I left what had been an enjoyable nearly six-year stint at the Valencia County News-Bulletin after a falling out with the editor. As it turned out, that seven-month stint here was my worst job in print.

It was a short staff, and we literally worked around the clock on Mondays, putting the paper together – 8 a.m. until 8 a.m. or so on Tuesdays. That’s how I always remember the Challenger disaster occurred on a Tuesday – I was asleep in my apartment in Albuquerque when it happened.

Fortunately for me, the editor at the VCNB was arrested for DWI and I was asked by the publisher to return, which I happily did. We even bought a home close enough that I could walk to work. I was there for about two years when the newspaper was sold and the owners canned me and brought in one of their buddies to be its editor, so I was without a job for a while.

I kept stringing high school sports stories for the Albuquerque Journal, in which I’ve had at least one byline every year since 1979, wrote for Varsity Sports magazine in the Duke City, found time for two one-year stints at the assignment desk at KOB-TV – worst job ever – and some on-air radio work. Plus, in the spring and summer, I was serving as the official scorer for the Albuquerque Dukes, which I’d done since the mid-point of the 1985 season and right through the end of the 1999 season.

Thus, when I saw an ad for a reporter at the Observer in the Journal in May 2000, I was gung-ho to return to print. The Observer had a great staff, helmed by publisher Mike Ryan, his wife Genie, Tharinger, Jeff Buell, Mary Beth King, Degener and I, plus a full-time photographer, Todd Berenger.

Within a month, Degener was gone, and I was back in sports, happily attending countless Rio Rancho High School games and matches, although the rams were having limited success, but soon volleyball started winning blue trophies and then the 2006-07 school year ended with a handful of titles.

Things changed in 2009 when Cleveland High School entered the field, and how cool was it when the Storm won the big-school football championship – on the road, no less – in November 2011, just its third year of competition? RRHS didn’t even qualify for the postseason until its fourth year of participation, and that ended with a snow-delayed loss in Carlsbad. (Coincidentally, Kirk Potter was the Cavemen’s head coach, and he was the Storm’s coach in 2011.)

Soon, the emphasis in New Mexico of the powers being in the south and southeast switched to the City of Vision, and I couldn’t be happier to be here for all that.

We used to envision how great it’d be if the Rams and Storm could meet on the gridiron for all the marbles one day, and it happened in 2019.

Certainly, the many coaches and student-athletes I’ve covered have enjoyed great success and it’s been a great ride for 24 years here at the Observer. I’ve had four books published, won countless awards from the New Mexico Press Association and survived colon cancer in 2020 – my year in hell.

That’s right: I’m hanging up the lanyard. I decided in December that this would be my final ride; “It’s time.”

And, if you’re reading this on the date of issue, Feb. 22, I have 99 more days before my final frontier: retirement.

By my unofficial count, I’ve worked for about six publishers, 14 editors and with close to 30 reporters – some good, more bad.

I found time to serve, at various times, with the Rio Rancho Sports Advisory Council, Cibola Little League’s board of directors, and the city’s library board. I had a five-year stint on the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame’s board. And I’m in two halls of fame.

In the words of Bob Hope, thanks for the memories. It’s been a great run.

Not bad for a two-finger typist, with one Journalism class in college.