So Long, Farewell

In today's JG, Nancy Vendrely writes about her retirement and provides the following memory:

It was February 1956, and my mother and I were driving to Florida on vacation. As we drove through Georgia, we heard on the radio that President Eisenhower was expected later that day at Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey’s Milestone Plantation outside Thomasville, Ga., for some quail hunting. We decided to stop and see whether we could get a glimpse of him.

We drove out of Thomasville to a narrow asphalt road that passed the estate entrance, thinking we’d have the best chance to see him there.

A bus parked on the road was filled with the White House press corps, also awaiting Ike’s arrival. Urged on by my mother, I approached the bus, introduced myself as a fellow journalist from Indiana and was immediately invited aboard – a total greenhorn among the journalistic elite.

I never did see the president, but I spent the rest of the day with that august group, attended a news conference called by White House Press Secretary James Hagerty at a local hotel, filed a story (via Western Union in those days) and could not believe my good fortune.

The tag to the story:

Nancy Vendrely has been a journalist for 38 years. Her past 18 years have been with The Journal Gazette, where she is a staff writer in the Features department. Vendrely has covered many events, people and communities in her time at the newspaper. Her final day at the paper will be Friday. If you would like to send well wishes, you can reach her at [email protected].