The Sopris Sun shines brighter, and certainly makes a lot fewer mistakes, because of Lee Beck, the weekly’s dedicated volunteer proofreader.
At a time when young people are consuming news through Tik Tok, and the media is beginning to utilize AI, Beck looks back on her time in the industry. Firsthand, she has seen it develop from proofreading on punch tape in the ‘70s to reviewing Google Docs today.
Some background
Growing up, there were always newspapers in Beck’s childhood home in the Bronx. Her parents instilled a sense of responsibility for keeping up with the world outside of their front door.
On top of which, the public school system she attended utilized newspapers in its curriculum. “Every year in elementary school, we had a newspaper unit,” Beck explained. “Newspapers were very much a part of our education.”
After high school, Beck attended the University of Connecticut, studying Government and minoring in History. Following her studies, she worked in advertising for four years back home, the advertising capital of the world, New York City. Then, she went on an adventure.
Her journey, planned for one year, began at the Alliance Francaise in Paris, studying French for six weeks; then acquiring a car with a couple of her classmates, and new friends, to travel through Spain. After dumping the car back in the South of France, she caught a boat in Marseilles to Haifa, Israel, where she stayed for a couple of months. Then, on to Italy, Switzerland, back to France and finally, England. Her funds held out for the better part of nine months, then, “Well, I just ate less,” she quipped.
Once back in the states, she returned to the grind of advertising in New York for another stint. She became bored, however, with her job and life in the city, so, in ‘71, she traveled to Aspen where she had visited a friend the year before. Again, Beck planned on staying no more than a year in this new place. “It’s been a long year,” she told The Sopris Sun.
At first, she skied and worked a couple of small jobs off of the books, including stuffing Section A into Section B of The Aspen Times (then a weekly) on Thursday afternoons with a crew of others. This was before machines did that kind of thing, Beck pointed out. “We got beer and pretzels, and two bucks an hour.”
Carbondale life
Working as the downvalley ad sales rep for The Times, among a variety of other responsibilities there (including proofreading), she became acquainted with Carbondale. She would stop in at The Valley Journal when it was operated by its founders, Pat Noel and Becky Young, to trade ads. Ads back then weren’t digital, of course, but hard copy. So, it took going places and face-to-face meetings to get the job done.
After a few years of Noel asking her to work for The Journal, in ‘78, Beck took a job there as the ads manager and moved to Carbondale.
Often, the team would be at the office until midnight on a Wednesday to meet deadline and put the paper to bed. After which, they often retired to the Black Nugget to wind down.
She made life-long friends there, such as Khara Gaw, then The Journal’s graphic designer. Beck is the godparent to Gaw’s children, and she and her husband, John Stickney, break bread on Thanksgiving with the Gaws to this day.
After leaving the Journal in ‘84, she did odd jobs, waitressing a bit and so forth, and more volunteer work. She recalls volunteering for KDNK’s Labor of Love Auction live on the air, and described it as her “very favorite thing to do.”
Beck took over for Jack Sebesta as the volunteer proofreader for The Sopris Sun sometime around 2010 or 2011. Since then, her sharp eye for detail and abundance of love for, and attention to, this community rounds out the pages of this paper week after week.
On top of making the paper appear as perfect as possible, Beck serves on The Sopris Sun’s board of directors. She stands up for what she thinks is right, and does so out of a sense of duty to preserve local journalism. She hardly, if ever, misses a volunteer opportunity for the paper, whether it be slinging drinks at the Mountain Fair Cantina or stuffing envelopes. The Sopris Sun is grateful for the invaluable care she continues to offer.
“I personally think it’s important that those of us who can, give back to our community,” Beck concluded. “This is one way I’ve found that I can give back.”