[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 137 (Thursday, October 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1908]]
       TRIBUTE TO ED MARSTON, PUBLISHER OF THE HIGH COUNTRY NEWS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 16, 2002

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge Ed 
Marston, who recently stepped down from the post of publisher of the 
High Country News, after serving in this role for nearly 20 years.
  I understand that Ed is staying on with the paper for a little longer 
as a senior journalist, and that his wife, Betsy Marston also is 
staying on as editor of the Writers on the Range, a syndicated column 
service created by High Country News.
  The High Country News has focused on the balance between the resource 
bounty that the west provides, all the people who have a stake in those 
resources, or realize that bounty, and the importance of proper 
management of those resources. Over the years, the paper has become a 
notable part of the journalism of Colorado and other western States--
and Ed and Betsy Marston have become synonymous with its probing 
coverage and analysis of environmental and natural resource issues. 
Under their leadership, the paper has become essential reading for 
everyone--policy makers, business people, government agencies, and 
students of the west--seeking to understand what is involved in these 
issues and why they so often prompt passionate views.
  As publisher, Ed Marston has worked hard to provide space for diverse 
voices and diverse views of people who share a love for the west even 
though that love takes different forms. The High Country News does not 
just examine issues and controversies from a purely theoretical or 
rhetorical perspective. Instead, it tries to obtain and report the 
perspectives of people who are directly affected, whether they raise 
cattle in New Mexico, live in timber-mill communities, or keep stores 
in small western towns. At the same time, the paper never lets its 
readers forget that these perspectives are part of a larger context of 
issues related to proper management of our public lands and the need to 
protect them while preserving the opportunity for people to make a 
livelihood from them.
  The paper was founded by Wyoming rancher Tom Bell. Ed and Betsy were 
involved in its relocation to Paonia, a small town in scenic Delta 
County, on Colorado's Western Slope. From there they have maintained a 
west-wide focus--covering issues related to pacific northwest salmon, 
farming in southern California, timber policies in Idaho and Montana, 
and such Colorado staples as water projects and wildlife management. I 
know many other Coloradans share my pride that a paper of such renown 
is based in our state. I know that the staff and journalists at the 
High Country News will continue the legacy of Ed Marston and will 
continue to be a part of the ongoing debates and challenges we face in 
the west. I wish Ed all the best and hope he and Betsy remain engaged 
in public policy debates and will continue to work to protect and 
enhance the western landscapes that we all cherish.
  A column written by Paul Larmer, interim publisher of the High 
Country News, about Ed's tenure as publisher of the paper follows.

                 He Sees the Society Behind the Scenery

       I first met Ed Marston when I was a wet-behind-the-ears, 
     wannabe journalist starting an internship at the funky little 
     newspaper called High Country News. It was January 1984, less 
     than a year after the paper had moved to Paonia, Colo., from 
     its birthplace in Lander, Wyo. I arrived fresh from the 
     nation's capital, where I had quickly learned that, despite 
     my college ambitions, I was not cut out for the grinding life 
     of an environmental lobbyist on Capitol Hill.
       Paonia, with its orchards and mountains and partially 
     boarded-up two-block downtown, seemed the perfect antidote to 
     Washington, D.C. So did a job working on an environmental 
     newspaper that covered the most blood-stirring wildlands left 
     in the country.
       My first impression of Ed Marston was this: How can this 
     man be the publisher of a Western environmental rag? Ed was 
     quiet-spoken, bookish and clearly from the East Coast, 
     despite the sideburns and unruly hair. But after a few days 
     working in the dingy, creaky-floored rooms of HCN's downtown 
     office, my perception began to change. The man possessed a 
     quiet intelligence and a razor-sharp editing pen. He also 
     seemed to know how to operate the paper's only computer. 
     Editor Betsy Marston (Ed's wife) and I pounded out copy on 
     typewriters.
       Ed worked that Radio Shack computer hard. Issue after 
     issue, he wrote long articles and essays, tackling everything 
     from wilderness and water to mining and logging. He admitted 
     that he was plunging in where he ought to fear to tread; he 
     lacked the background of HCN's earlier generation of 
     environmentalist editors. Yet the growing power of his words 
     showed he was a very quick study.
       It also became apparent that Ed's interests were far 
     broader than the public-lands issues that had long been the 
     paper's meat and potatoes. One of my first assignments was to 
     find out how rural hospitals were faring in the grim energy 
     bust that had settled on the region's rural communities. I 
     thought it was an odd story for HCN. I had come to write 
     about the environment, not health care. Yet the story was 
     interesting, and it opened my eyes to the people and 
     communities that live next door to the public lands. The land 
     has a human context that cannot be ignored even if you care 
     more about the wild than about humanity. That lesson stuck 
     with me long after I left Paonia in late May. I carried it, 
     and the memory of mountain air thickened with the smell of 
     blossoming cherry trees, through graduate school and even 
     through a stint at the Sierra Club in San Francisco.
       And I still had it when I returned to Paonia in 1992, this 
     time as a husband, father and assistant editor, with a desk 
     in HCN's new office, across the street from the old one.
       The paper's circulation had grown--from a hard-core 3,000 
     subscribers to nearly 10,000--and it was more sophisticated. 
     Ed no longer wrote every other cover story; he had help from 
     an extensive network of freelance writers and photographers.
       Yet Ed's ever-expanding vision of the region remained 
     central to the operation. Environmental issues remained at 
     the core of HCNs coverage--stories about lawsuit-wielding 
     activists and right-wing, anti-government conservatives 
     continued. But a more diverse menagerie of Westerners started 
     appearing in these pages: green-hearted ranchers and blue-
     collar environmentalists, hotel workers, economists, 
     historians, and scientists of all stripes.
       Since then, Ed's expanded vision of environmentalism in the 
     West has become embedded in this place. High Country News' 
     editors and writers now look for the story beyond the story, 
     for the strings that bind the West to itself and to the 
     world, as a matter of course. I can hardly talk about any 
     event without asking: ``So what does this mean for the 
     West?''
       That may make for dull conversation around the family 
     dinner table, but it nurtures an important dialogue for those 
     of us who live in this unique and rapidly changing part of 
     the country. For this, and many other fine things not 
     mentioned here, I thank Ed Marston.

     

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