Change is in the air - at the Cape Gazette, too

David Bowie, bless his soul, sang Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch Changes. Bob Dylan sang The Times They are a Changin’. And many people have said “The only thing constant is change.”

It’s thick around us right now, with changes in administrations at the federal and state level, and a new Sussex County Council member in the person of I.G. Burton.

Here at the Cape Gazette, we’re also going through a couple of changes of the guard. Norma Jean Parks, who many of us here have worked with all the way back to our days at the Whale newspaper, has decided it’s time to move on to her retirement adventure.

As production and advertising coordinator since 2000, Norma has been responsible for seeing that all the good work of our advertising, classified and news departments comes together on the pages that make their way to our printer in Dover. She also gets the pages to the technical folks that make them available electronically for those who read our eEdition.

Norma cracks the whip, hollering up and down the various hallways to keep the pages moving within our deadline boundaries, and encouraging our talented and award-winning graphic artists to keep pushing the excellence and quality envelope. That benefits our advertisers and all of our regular publications and special sections.

She does all of that with good-humored firmness so we can stay on schedule and get our readers their papers on time. Norma is a pro, and she will be missed.

Edwin Krumm, a graphic artist with the Cape Gazette since 2004, has been shadowing Norma for a few weeks as he prepares to take on the position of production coordinator. He works with a great crew of people who know their jobs and get them done. Norma has promised to pass her deadline whip along to Eddie so he can maintain her legacy.

On the news side of our operation, the venerable Fredman - also known as Dave Frederick and only called Dave by wife, Susan, and his Grand Mom Rose - insists on passing his Sports Editor title on to Nick Roth. “He’s doing the job anyway,” said Fred. “He should have the title.”

Coach Fred, as he’s known by the thousands of athletes whose lives he has touched as coach, sports writer and Athlete of the Week judge and jury, will continue to do what he’s been doing. That’s exactly whatever he wants to do. He’s written his People In Sports column without pause since the Cape Gazette started in May 1993. He also wrote columns and sports for the Whale newspaper prior to the advent of the Gazette.

Fred’s title, as listed on our masthead on page 6 of every edition, is now Sports Editor Emeritus, which must be better because it has a lot more letters. We look forward to publishing Fred’s columns, articles, photographs and Athletes of the Week - and listening to his hallway musings and stories - for many more years.

Nick has been with us since 2011. He covers our Lewes beat, is our certified drone pilot and photographer, edits the sports stories and builds the pages, and provides backup for the rest of our page-building staff. Like Fredman, who covers everything from T-ball tryouts to professional football, Nick is a sports junkie who is already carrying on the local sports focus for the Cape Gazette.

All of us at the Cape Gazette start 2017 with a continued commitment to serving our greater Delaware Cape Region community with the best publications, websites and special sections that we can muster. As always, thanks for reading.