John Derby, owner of local newspapers for 60 years including the Hughson Chronicle and Denair Dispatch, has died at the age of 87.

I shall not ever forget him for he played a significant role in my life.

Mr. Derby was responsible for giving me my first job as a newspaper reporter – it turned out to be a one-man operation – in June 1982.

I was 21 and living in the tiny city of Waterford and had published a small booklet on the history of Oakdale, my former hometown. Derby’s newspaper, The Waterford News, wrote an article about my book. In no time Mr. Derby was offering me a job as a reporter. Since I was only working part-time at Sears in the mall, I said yes to his offer. He had me serving as a newspaper reporter, editor, photographer and ad salesman– which gave me the insight that I never wanted to be a salesman.

That first job taught me some important lessons about being young and getting along in a town of older self-important people. They must have liked me for they gave me a pass on my shortcomings – and one occasion a major laugh. I covered one City Council meeting in which residents were up in arms about a proposed utility users tax, and quoted Cliff Vowell, a gentleman who spoke in opposition. The local real estate broker split his side when he saw that I misspelled his name as Cliff Bowel. Roy told me “We always knew Cliff was full of s*** but you just confirmed it.”

I’m chuckling as I write this. The faux pas was about as bad as the wrong word I used in my story of when George P. Bush, the president’s nephew came to our Ceres Courier office in 1999. The headline was supposed to read: “Bush nephew touts leadership skills of uncle,” only I typed “taunts.”

Then there was the time when downtown gas station owner Kathy Griffin had a good laugh about me misspelling homicide as “homocide”. I kid you not but this was before spell check.

Mr. Derby had a shoestring operation always hanging by one thread. My job duties included making the drive from Waterford to Winton where his offices and press were located in a converted Mennonite church on Gerard Avenue. There John taught me how to process film in the darkroom where in the glow of red light I made half-tone prints which were used in the paste-up production. Keep in mind this was in the 1980s before digital cameras. You never knew how your photos were going to turn out until they were developed.

I remember shooting photos of the negatives and opaquing unwanted shadow lines and artifacts.

My late wife Karen eventually got involved in the newspaper production with me to help out.

Thank God that cumbersome process fell to today’s computer technology which makes newspaper production so much more efficient.

It was such a shoestring operation that I had to load up the 2,000 plus copies of the newspaper stuffed in mail bags into the backseat of my 1974 Camaro and deliver them to the back dock of the post office since it was delivered by mail at bulk rate.

I also helped Mr. Derby kick-start the defunct Hughson Chronicle in 1985.

Derby had similar weekly newspaper in Merced County – the Merced County Times, the Atwater-Winton Times, theDelhi Dispatch and the Hilmar Times.

At the time of his death in Baja California Mexico on Jan. 9, Derby was the oldest working newspaper publisher in California and he had no plans of stopping. As he would often say, “ink is in my blood.”

John Derby had a zest for the newspaper business. While he was a decent writer, his newspapers – I’m not going to lie – lacked the professional touch I wanted to see. I recall one snippy exchange he had between my wife and John after she called his paste-up methods “sloppy.”

“Jeff, did you hear what your wife said to me?” he replied in mock indignation.

My wife was right but I didn’t make too big a fuss. I merely waited to correct it after he left the room.

A series of events led me to leave Derby’s Mid-Valley Publications in 1987. In 1987 Modesto Bee reporter and columnist Glenn Scott wrote about me in one of his columns, highlighting the difficulties of being a “one man newspaper” effort in Waterford. That led to a KXTV Channel 10 spotlight feature on me. 

Tom Paradis, general manager of the Ceres Courier saw the Bee column and came calling. He needed an editor as staffers Colleen McCann Hugg and Renee Ledbetter left the Courier and started a rival newspaper, the Ceres Independent – reportedly to put the Courier out of business. 

I was hired over a lunch at Su Casita Mexican Restaurant in Waterford and the Ceres Independent collapsed as the months went.

My 30th anniversary at the Courier was approaching when John Derby called me up out of the blue and wanted me to come to work for him. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell him no, that I was happy at the Courier, but I decided to hear his sales pitch over lunch.

He tried to recruit me to run his entire operation so that he could retire and spend more time in Mexico. Money was always an issue with John and he wouldn’t give me a hard number. It sounded like a lot of work for questionable pay. Besides, his promise that I had earned stock in his company when I left in 1987 never materialized.

We parted and that’s the last time I saw him.

John Derby arrived in the Valley in the 1950s from his East Coast roots. He studied at Fresno State and went into the service during the Korean conflict. He became a military journalist and became a reporter with the Merced Sun-Star in 1961. His beat was to cover Atwater. He disliked the control of the editor and he decided to leave and start a little paper, The Winton Times — a weekly with a circulation of about 2,000. He was inexperienced and had a rough time, burning through the $500 loan from his brother. To make ends meet he took portraits for extra pay.

Just before he was ready to throw in the towel in 1965, a Delhi grocery store owner approached him to start a newspaper there and he would help underwrite it with a years’ worth of full page ads. Thus the Delhi Express newspaper was born.

Meanwhile, Atwater merchants saw Derby’s little Winton paper and asked Derby to publish one there, thus came the Atwater Times.

Other newspapers followed.

After a 1998 fire wiped out the old church building where I spent days composing the Waterford News, Derby rebuilt bigger and better.

I worked alongside his wife, Kathy, in the composing room. She passed away in 2019 but John dusted himself off and continued doing what he loved and feeling important in his communities.

In the 1990s, Derby’s presses were printing eight newspapers and a half dozen others he didn’t own.

John Derby was tenacious and believed in journalism. I hope his readers appreciated what he did.

He once said: “The value in what we do is in the people we serve. We have always contended that newspapers are not dying. Bad newspapers are dying, but the good ones are alive and well. They continue to play a very important role in our country, our region, and our local community.”

May that always be the case. Long live our free press and God bless publishers like John Derby who still believe in informing the public.

* * * * *

I routinely receive reports on crashes from the California Highway Patrol that end with the paragraph, “This crash is still under investigation and it’s unknown if alcohol or drugs were a factor.”

We’ll never see this in a press release but it’s truth: “Stupidity appears was the primary factor in this crash.”

Certainly is the case of those young men who led police officers on a chase last week and died as a result. That may be a cruel statement but it’s true.

Young men, stop leading police on pursuits.

* * * * *

I received some hate for my article on how the murals painted on the walls of the smoke shop in downtown have elicited some negative comments. The hate came from those who painted the art.

Daniel Whitmore must be rolling over in his grave. He founded Ceres in the 1870s and stipulated that alcohol could not be sold from lots in town. Not only are there lots of bars and breweries and marijuana dispensaries but a metal building a block away from his historic home is now covered in art that depicted drug use. Bob Marley may be smoking from a hookah but we all know he smoked “ganja.” Cheech and Chong didn’t smoke tobacco in their films either.

Yeah, I know, it’s not the 1870s – it’s 2024 and culture has changed. But alcohol is still a vice and so is marijuana. While the Baptist Whitmore would be seen as a prude today, I don’t know if anyone can honestly say their bodies are better off because of alcohol or drug use.

While I was at the shop gleaning information for the story, the guys working on the art displayed attitude, making accusations against me and pressing for my opinion and motivation. One suggested I take a look at a smoke shop in Modesto which had more extreme artwork.

Later that day, I was gassing up at the AM/PM station on Yosemite Boulevard in Modesto when I spotted a smoke shop on the opposite side of the street. Nothing about the solid colors on that building could be construed as offensive.

Ceres isn’t Oakland – nor should it look like it.

Just saying.

* * * * *

Newsom was in Southern California last week celebrating the “progress” of his homelessness programs. 

What progress? Since taking office, the state has spent $20 billion and homelessness has grown by 20 percent.

Newsom’s definition of “progress” is vastly different from mine. Consider that in 2021, Newsom touted “progress” in California’s economic recovery from COVID while at the time, California had the highest jobless rate of the 50 states.

In 2023, he cheered California’s “progress to boost water supplies.” Yet, California hasn’t built any new water storage reservoir since New Melones in 1978 despite the voters approving a bond designating billions for it years ago.

Last month Gov. Brylcreem boasted of “continued progress” on high-speed rail. Nobody is saying when the project – which is now $94 billion over budget – will be completed.

Let’s hope national voters – if ever given the misfortune of seeing his name on the ballot – will soundly reject his brand of “progress.”

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com