By: E&P Staff Richard K. Wager, publisher and former editor of the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal, is retiring from the paper after 44 years.
Wager, who spent 11 years as editor of the Journal and the last 27 as its publisher, will depart on Dec. 31. He has served as the newspaper's chairman since last spring.
No stranger to the days when the din of clicking typewriters filled the newsroom, Wager saw his hometown newspaper evolve as it changed with the times. Under his watch, the Journal switched from an afternoon to a morning paper, and in 1991 installed a full-color printing press.
"The thing I love about daily journalism is the fun of putting together and finishing something within a cycle. That gives you a great sense of completeness," he told the Journal on Sunday. "'The excitement of having a beginning and an end restores you."
Wager also understood the need for ethnic diversity in the newsroom. He led the New York Newspapers Foundation to finance a program that encouraged papers to hire minority interns and increase the number of minority employees.
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