While covering an event for this newspaper recently I was asked how many years have I been writing and taking pictures as a photojournalist.

This made me put on my thinking cap to remember my news media career and the many reporters, writers, columnists, editors and publishers we have had the pleasure to know over the some 75 years that I have been penning articles for various news media.

Yes… you read that number correctly folks.......I started writing at the age of 8 in 1943 while attending the Liberty Elementary School on North Main St. and remember well how I started.

My uncle Cliff Sprague, who owned and operated Sprague Printing and published the Liberty Gazette along with his brothers, asked me one day to pen a column about what was going on in the elementary school some several blocks up Main Street from their printing plant.

I was a frequent visitor to the Liberty Gazette as my aunt and uncle lived four houses down the street from our house on Winslow Place, and I would go down to the Gazette office and wait for a ride home with my uncle.

Since I was always asking Cliff what he was doing (he was the Linotype operator) he introduced me to Hazel Leroy who was famous in Liberty for writing the Liberty locals column, and she and Cliff taught me how to write a column… so the beginning of a long and very rewarding career.

I wrote for the high school paper, college newspapers and was a Journalist in the U.S. Navy where I served as sports editor of the China Lake California military base newspaper and as the press secretary for the Admiral of Com Cru Des Pack.

After serving four years in the military I worked in advertising and broadcasting at Radio Station WVOS where I announced high school basketball games.

Then worked as a reporter and columnist for Harold and Clara Schue at the Liberty Register, served as assistant editor when Dick Rosenbaum took over as editor following the passing of Harold, worked with Don and Emily Battey at the Livingston Manor Times and had a joint venture with them in the purchase of the Liberty Ad-Visor and Sullivan County Press from Harrison Krum, worked as a reporter, advertising sales rep and later as editor of the Hancock Herald replacing editor Paul Fagan, served as advertising manager with Ruby Katz of Southern New York Publishers who printed a weekly shopper and three weekly newspapers including the Republican Watchman and the Liberty Evening News.

Worked with some outstanding newspaper people at Southern NY Publishers including great writers like Art Sugarman and Les Woods.

Served a number of years as a photo-journalist for the Times-Herald Record working with well-known photo-journalist Charlie Crist and photo-journalist Gil Weisinger.

Also around that time Bruce Wells was a popular news announcer for Radio Station WVOS.

My association with the Stabbert family and this newspaper tops my list with cherished times I spent with Publisher Fred Stabbert Jr., Editor Dan Hust, Sports Editor Rob Potter and now Publisher Fred Stabbert III, Co-editor Joseph Abraham and the entire staff of this great newspaper.

Cherish these memories.

Have not had the time yet to even think about retirement… hoop and baseball season on the horizon.… see ya at the next event.

Ed Townsend provides year around "Beyond The News"coverage in this column with over 60-years of photojournalism analysis and insight. The column can also be read on his Web blog at http://bght.blogspot.com