Unsung Heroes of The Madera Tribune (vol.2)

Without a doubt, The Madera Tribune appreciates its community, its readers and its advertisers — not necessarily in that order. Your support is our fuel that makes the hard work worth it, as we provide the services of publishing a newspaper for our community.

We have many unsung heroes at The Tribune. In my previous article in this series, I shared how much we appreciate Wendy Alexander’s work and her character. Wendy is the one who actually gave me the idea for the title of this series, as she was talking about a fellow employee. She said, “Ben Falcon is an unsung hero.”

Ben Falcon (also known here as Ben Jam In) came to work at The Madera Tribune in 2004, and he is a part of the editorial staff. Ben is the person who paginates the newspaper. He gets the articles into the paper on the pages where they belong, and where they fit. He also maintains our website and our Facebook page, and assembles your rants and raves to be placed on the Opinion Page of the paper.

I often greet Ben with, “Hi Ben, how’ve you been?” (Corny, I know.) Ben is one of those quiet types, but he has a particular characteristic that we all recognize here at the Tribune. It is his famous shrug. This shrug is his way of saying, “whatever.”

You may recall an article that was written last year about Leon Emo entitled, “Somewhere in the Silence.” (The Madera Tribune, May 17, 2018) This was an excellent article, and was written by Benjamin Falcon. That’s our Ben. He is talented and skilled in the newspaper business, as well as other areas. He is sort of a mechanic, and knows how to fix things like computers and cars.

Ben is patient, at least he appears to be. He is the one who “takes the heat” when the paper is late, even though it is not always his fault. He has to wait for the others to submit their ads, articles, legal ads, pictures, opinions, and anything else that goes into the paper. Then, he must wait until the proofreaders are done. His forte is making last-minute changes.

There is one person in this office whose day is not done until everyone’s work is completed and into the paper. That person is Ben Falcon. He is truly an unsung hero of The Madera Tribune.

Thank you, Ben, for all you do.

Ya’ll have a nice weekend! I’ll “see” you on Wednesday.

— Love to all, Nancy

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For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

— 1 John 3:11