By Joe O’Grady
I’m sure going to miss working with retiring Speaker Editor Steven Larocque.
While it’s only been a year since Steve invited me to join Team Speaker as a ‘rookie’ reporter, our paths have crossed many times over the years. I was a news reporter for decades at the Northern News’ now defunct Tri-Town bureau, often working alongside Steve as fellow journalists covering events across the region. A reporter’s job is not typically as glamorous as it looks on TV, and invariably we would indulge in idle gossip and reflect on the existential absurdity of our careers whenever we attended the same assignment. We took our jobs seriously, but not ourselves so much.
Our news careers on the beat eventually lead to management positions – Steve becoming Speaker editor while I went north to become editor in Kirkland Lake. Despite the absence of regular contact over the ensuing years, I never lost the feeling we remained kindred spirits in many ways.
The chance to connect with Steve again was a big motivating factor for me to join The Speaker newsroom when the opportunity arose last year. Over the last 12 months, his quiet commitment to excellence has been an inspiration, and few of my stories have made it onto the news rack without at least one ‘save’ by the man I dubbed ‘Bunny’ in honour of a similarly-surnamed Habs goaltender of yesteryear.
But Steve has earned himself some time off, and as much as we will selfishly miss his steady hand at the rudder and his dry, often dark humour, he deserves a break. Few people appreciate the toll it takes on a person being forced to use their synaptic functions all day long. Decision-making, writing, editing, interacting, it can be a lot. While a labourer might kick back and massage his sore muscles at the end of the day and enjoy his down time, you can’t massage a drained brain.
As editor of this community’s paper of record for more than a decade, Steve has left future generations with a balanced, fair and definitive account of how we lived our lives in these times, chronicled in the pages of The Speaker. That’s a pretty grandiose legacy for an unassuming guy from Cobalt who can appreciate a good fart joke as much as a profound quote from Nietzsche.
Enjoy your down time, Steve. Your legacy is secure.