For Carbondale Historical Society Vice President Will Grandbois, the upcoming Winter Speaker Series event is particularly near and dear to his heart. “Pages of the Past” will delve into The Roaring Fork Valley Journal — predecessor of The Sopris Sun. Besides Grandbois having been editor of The Sun, his mother, Rebecca “Becky” Young, started The Valley Journal with her then-boyfriend, Pat Noel, just shy of 50 years ago.
“There’s this tendency in history to look at what’s already recorded,” Grandbois told The Sun. “But somebody has to write those books. Somebody has to record history as it’s happening.”
Before The Valley Journal, there was not a consistent paper in Carbondale, and many stories went untold for a time. “I inherited an ethic [that] part of the job of the paper is to tell the now, and part of it is to tell whatever stories have been overlooked,” said Grandbois — an ethic he shares with his mom.
So, on Sunday, Jan. 19, Valley Journal alumni Lee Beck, Lynn Burton, Carol Craven, John Stroud and Noel will share what it was like to bring that paper to fruition week in and week out.
The early days
“I never studied journalism. I did journalism,” Noel recently told The Sopris Sun. And he started early, working as a carrier for The Denver Post in junior high and later starting a couple of “alternative” newspapers in Fort Collins. He did, however, go back to school at Colorado State University on the GI Bill, but never graduated.
Early in college, Noel became the editor of the school’s daily newspaper, The Collegian, “which is where I met Becky,” then the photo editor for The Collegian, he said.
Eventually, the duo left Fort Collins and moved to Longmont for a stint where Noel worked in the backshop of the Longmont Times-Call — where the arduous work of physically laying out a newspaper took place. Not feeling settled, they sent letters to everyone they could think of saying something to the effect of, “Power couple available: photographer, writer, graphic artist, typesetter, backshop expert, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” recalled Noel.
Bob Sweeney, who owned the Craig Daily Press, heeded their call. Sweeney had recently bought The Sage Reminder, based in Glenwood Springs, and had the printing press in Craig. He offered Young and Noel $100 a week each to start a paper in Carbondale. They arrived on March 24, 1974 and the first issue of The Roaring Fork Review was due on April 1. They hit the ground running.
In 1975, Sweeney sold The Roaring Fork Review and The Sage Reminder to a Georgia-based investor who Noel and Young didn’t jive with. So, with a little help from their friends, they started The Valley Journal by June that same year.
“There was a newspaper war — a violent newspaper war — for a couple of months,” Noel quipped, but The Review didn’t last long. Peggy and J.E. DeVilbiss were their “silent” partners and, along with Bob Young of Roaring Fork Bank (Alpine Bank), helped buy out The Review. Gail Blinde was their first reporter and Cindy (Shepherd) Chapin became the ads manager.
In those early days, every Wednesday night, Young and Noel would take the flats to Craig for printing and bring back the papers to be distributed the next day. “We never slept on Wednesday nights,” said Young. For the first issue, they printed 1,000 copies.
The papers were delivered to people’s Post Office boxes. “We would label them all by hand,” said Young, on Thursday mornings — still having not slept the night before.
Young loved hearing people’s stories and capturing them in the moment. “It was simply the marvel of the kinds of lives of the people that were here. I thought, ‘This is bloody beautiful,’” she shared.
The Valley Journal earned a reputation for its cover photos. And because Carbondale was so small at the time, in the back of their minds they figured by a certain point everyone in the community would be featured.
When asked what it was like working at The Valley Journal in its heyday, Noel replied, “It was a family … it was home.” He added, “Carbondale was a different town [and] The Valley Journal was a paper for the times.”
The later years
John Stroud came over from the Glenwood Post (now the Post Independent) in 1996 and worked at The Valley Journal until its final printing. Lynn Burton was the editor when Stroud started, and Noel had “one foot out the door.” Before becoming editor himself in 2005, Stroud also worked with John Colson, one of a few editors after Burton.
By the time Stroud settled in, the production side of things was transitioning to the digital age, and the printing press wasn’t nearly as far as Craig. It became more manageable, but the spirit of The Valley Journal persisted.
In 2008, “We kind of saw the writing on the wall, because the recession had hit pretty big time,” said Stroud. Still, he was distraught when the publisher let him know the paper would be folding after the annual Color the Cover issue went to press on Christmas Eve. “It was a tough Christmas,” he said.
A lasting legacy
Today, The Sopris Sun continues to model The Valley Journal, from its staple cover shots to its own version of Color the Cover. Stroud now writes for The Sopris Sun and Terri Ritchie, who did ad graphic design for The Valley Journal, designs the editorial layout for the paper today.
Writing for The Sun inspires some nostalgia within Stroud. “I’m writing for the Carbondale paper again,” he said. “The Sopris Sun operates in the same way as the old Valley Journal … I just really enjoy and appreciate that.”
Digital archives
Bound volumes of The Valley Journal archives live safely at the Carbondale Library. Last year, the library connected with Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, a service of the Colorado State Library, which hosts newspaper archives online. The library district paid to digitize the first 18 years of The Valley Journal (1975 through 1992). Only the 1975 to 1982 volumes are currently online, but archives through 1992 will be up later this year.
Having the only full set made Carbondale Library Branch Manager Tracy Kallassy, also a volunteer proofreader for The Sun, nervous. So, she set out to get the collection digitized. The library does not have funding set aside for the rest of the archives (1993 to 2008). So, it’s up to the community to make it happen. The first round cost $20,000, and $28,000 is needed to finish the job.
You can help by donating to the Garfield County Public Library Foundation, in person or online, and specifying it’s for The Valley Journal digitization project.
“History is always unfolding, and the only people who are consistently capturing it are the newspapers,” concluded Grandbois.
Carbondale Historical Society’s next Winter Speaker Series event, “Pages of the Past,” starts at 6:30pm on Jan. 19 in the Calaway Room at the Third Street Center. For more information, visit www.carbondalehistory.org