Sunday, October 3, 2010
Kevin and fellow copy editors
Video of Kevin talking about Owen Bradley's "Quonset Hut"
A tribute to Kevin from our former colleague Zoe Cabaniss Friloux:
I'll always remember the bonding moments we had as the newbies on the news copy desk in 1995, and I'm so glad we kept in touch over the years. This is a video our friend Renee made last year. (Kevin was an expert on just about everything having to do with Tennessee and the music industry in Nashville.)
I'll always remember the bonding moments we had as the newbies on the news copy desk in 1995, and I'm so glad we kept in touch over the years. This is a video our friend Renee made last year. (Kevin was an expert on just about everything having to do with Tennessee and the music industry in Nashville.)
A tribute to Kevin by Jeff Cobble
The first time I met Kevin Paulk, I made him laugh. I was about a week away from my college graduation and was in Nashville for a job interview at The Tennessean. Kevin and Diane Nottingham (now Pizarro) took me out to dinner at Cafe 123 that first night. When they asked what I thought of The Tennessean, I deadpanned how disappointed I was that the daily comics section didn't carry the Fox Trot strip. Fortunately for me, they both laughed, and I ended up getting the job. If that joke falls flat, perhaps the interview takes a different direction, maybe I don't get the offer, and my life takes me to a very different place than where I am today (obviously, one successful or failed joke does not an interview make, but it was our icebreaker).
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a luncheon for employees who had been with the paper 10, 20, 30 or 40+ years. I wouldn't have been here for 10 years without Kevin's influence, both during that interview and in his capacity as my direct supervisor for several years at The Tennessean. Late last night, I learned Kevin had died of a heart attack.
I can't do justice to Kevin in this space, but I always admired how he was able to balance the many demands of his job as copy desk supervisor. He was an aggressive editor, always looking to improve the final product, whether it was a sentence, a story, a headline, a layout. Just because you had a good headline didn't mean you couldn't come up with a better one. That attention to detail and commitment to excellence, along with his sense of fairness, made him one of the best journalists I have known.
He was also a friend, serving as a reference for me, and he was generous enough to be my chaffeur a couple of times, too: once when my car got towed, and once to give me a ride home from the airport.
So to Kevin, may your journey be prosperous, my friend, and rest in peace.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a luncheon for employees who had been with the paper 10, 20, 30 or 40+ years. I wouldn't have been here for 10 years without Kevin's influence, both during that interview and in his capacity as my direct supervisor for several years at The Tennessean. Late last night, I learned Kevin had died of a heart attack.
I can't do justice to Kevin in this space, but I always admired how he was able to balance the many demands of his job as copy desk supervisor. He was an aggressive editor, always looking to improve the final product, whether it was a sentence, a story, a headline, a layout. Just because you had a good headline didn't mean you couldn't come up with a better one. That attention to detail and commitment to excellence, along with his sense of fairness, made him one of the best journalists I have known.
He was also a friend, serving as a reference for me, and he was generous enough to be my chaffeur a couple of times, too: once when my car got towed, and once to give me a ride home from the airport.
So to Kevin, may your journey be prosperous, my friend, and rest in peace.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Remembrances of our friend Kevin
Kevin Paulk was a man of many talents and interests: He was a journalist, a musician, a lover of roads and maps and Elvis and country music and his family. His passing this week is a terrible loss for those who knew him.
We offer this blog as a place for folks to post their remembrances of him. Please feel free to comment by clicking on the "comment" link below. (Don't be alarmed if your comment doesn't show up right away -- to keep spam at bay, we may need to hold each comment until it's approved by an editor ... Frustrating, I know, but Kevin would probably appreciate the effort at quality control.) If you don't feel comfortable fooling with the comment process, please e-mail me, Jennifer Peebles, at jennifer@texaswatchdog.org, and we'll get your thoughts posted.
We offer this blog as a place for folks to post their remembrances of him. Please feel free to comment by clicking on the "comment" link below. (Don't be alarmed if your comment doesn't show up right away -- to keep spam at bay, we may need to hold each comment until it's approved by an editor ... Frustrating, I know, but Kevin would probably appreciate the effort at quality control.) If you don't feel comfortable fooling with the comment process, please e-mail me, Jennifer Peebles, at jennifer@texaswatchdog.org, and we'll get your thoughts posted.
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