Cheers! The Oklahoman's Food Dude reflects on 32 years as journalist
Time's up on my final week of full-time employment at The Oklahoman, and I'm a little concerned because I was under the incorrect assumption these new wings came with a warranty.
As mentioned in my final Food Dude column for Wednesday, I plan to co-produce a TV series focused on local food and dining in the spring. Food Dudery was the highlight of my 32 years at The Oklahoman and it will be a part of my life going forward.
But almost 20 years before the first Food Dude column published, I started working at what was still called The Daily Oklahoman with no intention of becoming a food writer. Roger Angell was more an inspiration then than M.F.K. Fisher.
Athletics were a major part of my upbringing, winning soccer scholarships to York College in Nebraska and eventually Oklahoma Christian, and the only academic courses where I showed any promise tended to revolve around writing.
Journalism was secure and rewarding, if not lucrative, I convinced my parents.
Rewarding? Absolutely. Secure? Whoops.
Seven years in Sports were followed by seven years in our Norman bureau with four years on the City and State desks before the Food section came calling for the final 14.
Sports is where I got my first byline on April 28, 1991: The subject was women's team handball. NFL previews, predictions and Extra Points for the Monday section followed.
I also got a chance to start writing a TV column called "Slightly Out of Tune," which didn't pay much but afforded me advance copies of new TV episodes. The joy of receiving the "X-Files" finale a month early hasn't yet ebbed. But ultimately it taught me how easily passion can fade from a pastime when it becomes your job.
The Norman Bureau was a familial work environment, and I cherish to this day friendships that I hatched there. It also put me face-to-face with death for the first time.
Wayne Singleterry was probably the best newsman I ever knew, but Wayne could sit and talk about food, recipes and the best places to get an Indian Taco all day long. He was a veteran journalist in a small newsroom full of neophytes. He shepherded us with a velvet staff and a loud makeshift clacker.
On Dec. 5, 2001, Wayne suffered a massive heart attack in our office. He died later that evening. It fell to me to cobble together an obituary from staff input. Life has never been the quite the same since Wayne's passing.
Metro Editor Mark A. Hutchison called me to the Dark Tower of Britton and Broadway (now American Fidelity) in 2004 to become an assistant Metro Editor. Hutch, who passed away in 2011 after a tragic spinal injury, put me in charge of Capitol coverage and special projects, which included planning holidays.
The time working on Capitol matters helped prepare me for the series of articles I wrote about the scandal involving Swadley's Barbecue and the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department earlier this year.
Holiday coverage gave me a chance to travel back in time in five-year increments aboard The Oklahoman's archives. In 2006, I happened upon a Christmas Eve story from 1956 that turned into one of my favorite stories ever.
A picture on the front page of the Dec. 23, 1956, edition of The Daily Oklahoman caught my eye. It depicted a young man named Marvin Edwards being consoled by a pretty young girl after a gunshot wound. Edwards, the story explained, was shot making a night deposit at the Capitol Hill bank for his father, who managed the shoe store across the street. The only follow-ups concerned the assailant's legal jeopardy; no trace of what happened to Marvin.
Wielding the power Lexis-Nexis, I was sure I could track him down, but the closest I came was a gentleman in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This man, named Mickey instead of Marvin, fit the age and had the appropriate previous Oklahoma addresses plus a few in Washington D.C.
Folks over the age of 40 will have recognized the person I found was longtime Oklahoma congressman Mickey Edwards. In the 16 years Edwards served Oklahoma's 5th Congressional District, never once was there mention of the two bullets pulled from just below his heart at the age of 19 just days before Christmas in 1956.
Familiarity with the archives also made it possible to examine Oklahoma's troubled history on race relations and the Tulsa Race Massacre in 2020 and 2021.
As State Editor in 2007, I had incredible fortune. Backing me was the best staff any editor at The Oklahoman ever had with Tony Thornton, Julie Bisbee, John Sutter, Johnny Johnson, Ron "Big West" Jackson, Sheila Stogsdill, Larry Levy and the inimitable Henry Dolive. That group consistently produced amazing work that it would take a volume to document.
The State Desk was among the first casualties when journalism began to pay the price for its woeful preparation for the Internet age. The Oklahoman was among the last daily metropolitan newspapers that offered statewide coverage.
The end of the State Desk was, in many ways, the end of The Oklahoman as it was originally conceived. Plenty of the paper's original DNA was excised, but statewide coverage wasn't among it. That said, it was far too expensive to continue.
That move opened the door for The Food Dude, and corporate's most recent voluntary severance opportunity showed me a velvet-roped exit.
I can now report JaNae Williams will take over food and dining coverage and the Wednesday Food section. JaNae is passionate about cooking, good food and good people.
Here's hoping she has the good fortune of meeting people as entertaining as the late, great John Bennett. As helpful as Kurt Fleischfresser, who is director of operations at Vast. As inspiring as Florence Jones Kemp, who spent more than 70 years behind the stove just east of the Capitol. As gracious and Ba and Hai Luong, who at Super Cao Nguyen have anonymously backed so many culinary causes.
Finally, I wish nothing but good fortune for the remaining staff at The Oklahoman and pledge my support going forward. Our democracy has never needed propaganda-free journalism as desperately as it does now, and I encourage you all to reach for a digital subscription.
Time to fly.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Food Dude Dave Cathey reflects on 32 years as a journalist
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