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23 “SCOOP” orking as a painter’s helper at Keesler Field, going ahead of the painter with a handkerchief wrapped around my face, brushing away dirt and cobwebs from under the eaves of barracks wasn’t exactly the job I was hoping to get after graduating from high school. But it paid thirty dollars a week and jobs were scarce in 1947. I grabbed it and held on to it for several months. Then, one day while thumbing through the Daily Herald want ads, I spotted one that read: “General assignment reporter wanted, knowledge of sports desired.” The mention of sports caught my eye and I immediately telephoned the Herald’s Biloxi office. Except for having been sports editor of Notre Dame’s school paper, the Lighthouse, I had no journalism experience. But I had played just about every sport at school and pitched fast softball on an amateur team. My lack of journalism experience didn’t seem to faze Cosman Eisendrath , the Biloxi city editor, who interviewed me. After all, Mr. Eisendrath , as I always called him, had started as a bill collector for the Herald at the age of nineteen after graduating from Biloxi High School, and he’d become a reporter shortly thereafter. He liked my enthusiasm and my assurances I could do the job—lack of self-confidence was not one of my weaknesses. He hired me on a three-month probationary period with the understanding if I did okay during that time I could stay. Otherwise I would leave with no hard feelings on either side. Under his guidance I learned the rudiments of the trade, writing routine stories about accidents, civic club meetings, obituaries, and high school football games. My biggest thrill was covering sporting events, even if I mangled a metaphor here or there. I still remember my lead about a star runner on the Biloxi High football team who later played for Mississippi State. “Shouldering the burden of an injured ankle, Norman Chapter 4 24 "scoop" Duplain ran for three touchdowns . . .” I wrote, thinking it was a pretty sparkling bit of prose. At the time, Mr. Eisendrath needed me because he was the only other editorial employee in Biloxi—there was another city editor eleven miles up the coast in Gulfport—and he did all of the local reporting until I came along. As the weeks passed, he gave me more and more responsibilities until by the end of my probationary period I was covering city hall, the police department, and the federal court. I had another great mentor in those days—Wilson F. (Bill) Minor, the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Jackson correspondent, a handsome World War II navy veteran. We often found ourselves covering the same events, frequently conventions hosted by Biloxi hotels where speakers included U.S. senators and cabinet officers. Since I had so little knowledge of national issues, I would often turn to Bill and ask, “What’s the lead, Bill?” And he would point out several paragraphs he thought should be at the top of the story. For years, operating out of his office in Jackson, Mississippi, Bill has fearlessly exposed crooks, Klansmen, and race-baiting politicians. He has also been the go-to guy for just about every out-of-state reporter who has come through Mississippi to cover civil rights, generously giving all comers background briefings, names and telephone numbers of contacts, and, crucially, advice on how to stay out of danger. Bill has remained in Jackson for more than sixty years, covering politics and civil rights, seemingly impervious to death threats and social ostracism. He finally got a measure of the national recognition he deserved in 1997 when he became the first recipient of the prestigious John Chancellor Award, started by businessman Ira A. Lipman in honor of his friendship with the late John Chancellor. But Bill was already a hero to scores of reporters. (I once had an argument with longtime Boston Globe correspondent Curtis Wilkie, who mentioned that Bill Minor was his hero. “No,” I argued. “He can’t be your hero. He’s my hero.”) Through the years, he not only helped me on many a story, but he became a close, lifelong friend. Bill, like Mr. Eisendrath, was always properly dressed and mannerly, but in other ways the two could not have been more different. Bill was a boat rocker. Mr. Eisendrath was a civic booster and soft-spoken gentleman of the old...

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