CLASS NOTES
has extensive experience representing clients in the financial services industry, including investor disputes, regulatory inquiries and disputes involving corporate raiding.
1988
Resuscitating a local newspaper
J
Chi Psi had a ReUnion in Newport, Rhode Island, recently. Among those in attendance were Mike Forhan ’88, Bob Koch ’88 and Charlie Slotnik ’88.
The call came in March. Who wants to hike Northville-Placid Trail? The instigator of the call, Bob Steindl, promised clean mountain air, sunny skies and starlit nights on a 140-mile jaunt through the foothills of the Adirondacks. Five friends from the Class of ’88 (John Balzano, Catherine (Tremante) Canavan, Mark Shanahan, Steve Szydlik, Lou Tremante) eventually signed on with Bob for various segments of the adventure, joining forces with unsuspecting spouses and friends to form the 13-person “Seward’s Follies” team. Bob served as spiritual leader of the intrepid band, using his 20 years in the U.S. Air Force to plan the trip with military precision. Over the next four months, terms like “bear cans,” “drift box,” and “picaridin” became familiar lexicon as the smarter members of the crew tested gear and trained their
48
UNION COLLEGE | FALL 2021
anice Thompson ’86 was never a journalist, editor or publisher. She’d never worked at a newspaper in any capacity. But that didn’t stop her from saving one. When her local paper printed its last issue in October 2020, she realized something. “A lot of people depended on the monthly Anchor for their news,” said Thompson, who has spent her career as a fundraising executive at places like MIT, Harvard, Boston Athenaeum and Meadowbrook School of Weston. “Harpswell has the oldest median age in the state of Maine—whose median age is the oldest in the country—so many of our residents don’t access online news resources like younger folks do.” She knew she couldn’t let the loss stand. “This is a crazy time. We find ourselves debating what “facts” are; “fake news” is accused from both sides of the political isle; anyone can espouse a theory (no matter how true) and find millions of followers online. Local papers are folding all over the country,” Thompson said. “And that’s why it’s even more important to keep local reporting alive.” In January 2021, Thompson and a group of friends and neighbors started pooling their financial resources so they could purchase the intellectual property and brand of the Anchor. They also wanted to mail a survey to the 4,700 residents of Harpswell, to find out what they needed in their hometown paper. “We signed the purchase deal with the last editor just four weeks before the inaugural issue was due to the printer—big crunch time!” Thompson said. “The first paper was edited by a volunteer who was a Boston Globe editor for many years. Our
first issue hit the mail the Friday before Memorial Day.” Getting that first paper out the door was tremendously challenging, but also extraordinary. “I don’t remember working so hard on anything before, even during my 80-hour weeks as a director of development. Everything we’ve done has had to be learned from scratch—we didn’t get any training from the past editor,” Thompson said. “But the process has also been the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. I feel like finally I’m making a difference in my community.” The newspaper’s team includes a fulltime editor and half-time administrative assistant. Thompson herself is at 80 percent time as director of development and operations. Prior to this, she was director of development at the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust. The Anchor still publishes once a month. It doesn’t cover national or even state news, unless such news directly affects Harpswell. “The old paper covered mostly features and steered clear of controversy or news,” said Thompson, who holds an MBA from Boston University and a MEd from UMass Boston. “We are expanding the features to include news, especially from town. Our subjects focus a lot on our being a coastal community—the working waterfront, fishing, aquaculture. We also have letters to the editor and a calendar section.” “Harpswell has a weird geography,” she added. “We are located on two peninsulas connected by a bridge across water, so we have no town center where people meet regularly. One survey respondent called the Anchor the ‘virtual meeting place for Harpswell’ and we like that a lot.”
