ROTHENBURGER – 50 years in Kamloops – time flies when you’re having fun
News-Advertiser newsroom in the 1970s. Typewriters and sweater vests.
THE SUMMER OF 1970 was a busy time, especially on Monday, Aug. 3. There wasn’t yet a B.C. Day stat holiday; it was the beginning of a new work week. The sky was clear, the temperature hit 32 degrees (technically, 84, since we were still not fully into metric).
The Beatles had only recently broken up even though their Let It Be album was number one on the charts. Anti-Vietnam protests raged. Midnight Cowboy had won the Oscar for best picture. The GenXers were taking over from the baby boomers.
On that day, Aug. 3, I began work at the Kamloops News-Advertiser. It published three times a week then. Fifty years ago. Five decades. Eighteen thousand, 256 days.
I was 26. I moved into a tiny house near McDonald Park, a short walk to work at the newspaper offices on Tranquille Road.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former school board chair, former editor of The Kamloops Daily News, and a current director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He was awarded the Jack Webster Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2011 and was a 2019 Commentator of the Year finalist in the Webster Awards. His editorials are published Monday through Thursdays, and Saturdays on CFJC Today, CFJC Midday and CFJC Evening News. Contact him at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
You should write a book about your experiences in Kamloops over the last 50 years. It would make good reading.
By the way, 32 C equals 89.6 F.