Co·in·ci·dence – noun: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.
— Oxford Language Dictionary
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“So, what are you gonna do now,” asked Craig as we sat at the tall work table stools just inside The Monitor newspaper office.
“I don’t know,” I told the editor and publisher of the Naples newspaper who was always known only by his last name. Said the only two people who called him Morris were his mother and his first-grade teacher.
That was late 1974 or early 1975. A long time ago in newspaper years, but not that long after Morris Craig had purchased the northeast Texas publication.
“I went to school to learn how to teach,” I told him. “Discovered I wasn’t cut out to be a schoolteacher and went to work for Dan down the street at Hampton’s Building Supply because I could draw house plans. Now Dan is going out of business. At this moment, I don’t really know,” I said. “My mother always says the third time is the charm, so we’ll see.”
My mother was how I came to know Craig. He, like many other weekly publications in the area, printed his paper at the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune office on Second Street where my mother worked in the circulation department. And Craig, being the outgoing and friendly guy he always was, made the rounds at the Tribune office every week to say, “Hello.”
I used to think it was just a coincidence I went to The Monitor the day I found out my job at Hampton’s was ending. Seeking a job was the last thing on my mind. I just needed a friendly voice that day, and there was no one friendlier or more uplifting to visit with than Morris Craig.
The next words out of his mouth, however, answered the question of the hour and opened the door to a life-long career path for a twenty-something-year-old with no idea where he was going.
“I know you can take pictures,” Craig said. “Come work for me a while until you find something else.”
“A while” turned into two years. Long enough to discover that community newspapering answered the callings of how I would ultimately spend my life. During that time, Morris Craig instilled in me what I still call “the basics of newspapering.” How to produce a respected community newspaper that everyone looked forward to reading.
What followed The Monitor was no coincidence. Time spent in a couple of other newspapers, classes at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches to earn a master’s degree in communication journalism, and then what I call “almost a PhD” in journalism from The University of North Texas in Denton taught me something else.
I was knee deep and dollars into having learned about “textbook journalism,” but none of it taught me as much about good community newspapers as Craig did at The Monitor.
So, when I took my cumulative knowledge and experience into the classroom at SFA to teach aspiring young journalists, I added Morris Craig Monitor education to the curriculum. Knowledge gleaned from a community journalist who never took the first college course in journalism or anything else. Skills Craig acquired from previous Monitor owner, Lee Narramore, an old Army veteran journalist, that he applied with his unique understanding of people and appreciation for enjoying life.
Craig often recounted how Narramore approached him one night during his senior year. “I was working nights running the projector at the Inez Theater in Naples,” he said. “I was sitting on the curb, drinking a Coke and waiting for time to change movie reels when Lee walked out of the newspaper office across the street.”
Just as Craig asked me almost 20 years later, he said Narramore asked him that night what he was going to do after graduation. Craig said, “I told him I didn’t know, and he offered me a job.”
Craig accepted the offer, embarking on a career journey lasting almost seven decades at one newspaper.
Press association awards for editorial excellence filled the walls of The Monitor office in the beginning. However, Craig had said in recent years, he had nothing else to prove except delivering the best community newspaper produced to readers in North Morris County every week. And that’s all he ever did.
Criag’s journey ended Saturday, August 19. Morris Craig passed away at the age of 85 after 67 years of setting the standard for community newspapers.
Maybe it was just a coincidence that I wrote about another Naples resident and friend in this space last week, Dorothy Beggs. Monday, I sent the column to newspapers around the state that are kind enough to print it each week, including The Monitor.
Craig responded Tuesday with memories of Dorothy and her favorite song, and recalling “the good times.” When I uploaded the weekly piece to my blog Saturday morning, as I do every week, I added Craig’s comments. And as I did, memories of Naples, the Monitor, and my professional and friendship journey with Morris Craig made me smile.
There was no way for me to have known that would be the very morning that Craig’s journey had reached its -30- The traditional symbol once used by journalists that means “end of the story.”
You don’t meet people like Craig by coincidence. But for the “remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection” that allowed my path to cross with that of Morris Craig’s … I was beyond blessed.
—Leon Aldridge
(Photo at the top of the page — Morris Craig (left) and Leon Aldridge (right) photographed by Monitor staffer Melissa Lynn Goforth in July of 1998. The photo was published in the July 29, 1998 edition of The Monitor. The headline that week stated, “Change of ownership for Monitor —Tenth change in publishers since 1886.” Health concerns caused Craig to seek a buyer for his newspaper. Saying he didn’t want to sell it to just anyone, he convinced me to purchase the publication. Thankfully, his health returned to good standing, and in an ironic role reversal he worked for me a short time before I sold it back to him. In my mind, it was always his newspaper … even when he entrusted ownerhship to me for a short time.)
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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, The Fort Stockton Pioneer, and The Monitor in Naples.
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