Lunch brings suggestions on how to improve the Bee

While the world is engrossed on who will be the next Iranian dictator and how Sarah Palin’s feelings were hurt by David Letterman, we have a more serious problem right here.

To wit:

Bonner Dispatch entry: 6-13-09. Time reported: 8:35 a.m. Unit SP30 arrives 8:52 a.m. Unit SP34 arrives for backup at 8:36 a.m.

The report: “On the 1600 block of Main Street in Sandpoint, officers Valenzuela and Hottman responded to a case for a theft of worms.”

That’s right, there’s been a robin in Sandpoint.

In an obvious case of early birds, Sandpoint’s finest flocked to the area in hopes the evidence wouldn’t wriggle away.

There are no suspects but if you ask me, there is something fishing about the whole incident.

I think the ITD should do some of the byway work at night this summer. This would help local merchants and residents. Who do I call?

In this job it helps to have a sense of humor, an ego and thick skin.

How else could I have been prepared to meet Patricia Labrum on Tuesday? Labrum outbid a few of my friends, co-workers and a Rotarian in a recent NIE silent auction to have lunch with the publisher.

This auction has been a great fundraiser to help deliver newspapers to classrooms in Bonner and Boundary counties.

We usually have 100 or so items graciously donated by local merchants so I figure I can buy a lunch for some bidder.

I have had a good run: The Spicklemires, Charles Rieger, Esther Gilchrist and a handful of others and I have had some great lunches.

But the best lunch date so far was with Labrum.

I knew I was in for an interesting experience when she told me she had a list of suggestions about how to improve the Bee that was compiled by her friends in the water aerobics class at SWAC.

She also handed me a sealed greeting card from one of her friends.

As we walked over to Connie’s, she let me know that her bid for me was a “sympathy bid.”

“I couldn’t believe you were so low,” she said. “I was really bidding on some Fantastic Sam’s haircuts and I lost out when they went for more than $10. I figured I couldn’t go too wrong for $7.”

That’s right. My price is $7. Do you have any idea how much that is a pound? That is the lowest price I have ever received. The most? $90.

So, I have resigned myself to lunch with a person I don’t know who has a list of suggestions for my paper who has told me that I went for $3 cheaper than a haircut at Fantastic Sams. How could it get any better?

“Your sports section sucks. You need a proofreader and more follow-up on stories,” she read from a prepared statement. I could almost smell the chlorine from the pool on the paper.

“But the good news is we enjoy all of the local news,” she said.

Finally, an opening.

I thanked her for her comments and told her she represented the water aerobics class in fine fashion. I defended our local sports writer and said most negative comments I hear about our sports coverage comes from people who have moved here from some bigger city.

In Denver, Seattle and even Spokane, those cities have all had sports sections that emphasize pro teams and leagues or other teams that have national interest. Two of those towns recently closed a newspaper and one is a poor shell of what it used to be. I like our plan better.

There is no other paper (or media source for that matter) that covers the Bulldogs, Wampus Cats and local sports better than the Bee. We cover our area first and attempt to squeeze in other sports when we can.

She liked the answer.

“I’m part of a silent majority,” she said. She voted Republican (loved Sarah Palin, didn’t like McCain), attended the recent Tea Party (but left when a “member of the Posse Comitatus said we don’t have to pay taxes.”

“I’m like the majority of people I know,” she said. “I root for the home team, am Christian, I thump on a Bible and carry guns. I also hate poverty and graffiti.”

She had me at “ I root for the home team.”

Mrs. Labrun said her obituary will be pretty dull.

“I have been a housewife my entire life and I pride myself on being a good wife and mother,” she said.

She and her husband of 43 years, Ralph, moved to the Johnny Long Road area from Bakersfield, Calif., 12 years ago.

He’s retired from the California Fish and Game.

Before they moved, she noticed gang graffiti popping up in her neighborhood.

She took matters in her own hands and started covering up the graffiti within hours after it was applied.

This battle of wills lasted a few weeks. Neighbors worried about her safety and politicians actually bought paint for her.

Within a month, the graffiti went away.

“These kids don’t have enough to do,” she said. “Families need help to keep their kids from acting out this way.”

She hated to see the graffiti at the Healing Gardens last year.

In the 1980s, her teen daughter filled her room chock-full of Ozzy Osbourne posters. She also played his music.

“I didn’t like the fact that Ozzy had taken over her life, so one day I took all of the posters down and forced her to listen to Glenn Miller,” she said. “It was my house and Ozzy wasn’t invited to stay.”

Her now 40-plus-year-old daughter told grandma she is doing the same thing with her own children.

So between swimming nearly every day and enjoying her “Norman Rockwell town,” Labrum says Sandpoint it like stepping back in time “although it is speeding up.”

It’s funny how you get to like someone when they pay $7 to have lunch with you. It was worth every penny.

n David Keyes is publisher of the Daily Bee. What was in the envelope? Maybe next time.