There are people in everyone's life who have played a major role in their own lives. For me, one of those people was Joseph Duerr, editor of The Record (our archdiocesan weekly newspaper from 1985 to 2010). It was with great sadness to hear that he had died on September 19 at age 86.
He is the first of three editors (Joseph Duerr, Glenn Rutherford, Marnie McAllister) who allowed me to be a weekly columnist for 15 years. My column, entitled An Encouraging Word, started in 2002 and ended in 2017.
I can still remember, tentatively and cautiously, proposing the idea of writing a weekly column to Mr. Duerr, not knowing how he would react. To my surprise he welcomed the idea right away, even though neither of us could predict how long I would be able to produce a weekly column. All three editors in a row welcomed me and appreciated me during those fifteen years. I am happy to report that I was not fired or asked to quit. It was my idea to stop on September 21, 2017.
Such an idea may have been a risk for Mr. Duerr to take, but it was a real blessing for me to "encourage" so many people, inside and outside our archdiocese, each week for so many years. All of those old columns still "encourage" some people who clipped, collected, saved, passed them on to others or who still re-read them in the old books that I published each year. All fifteen years of them are still available at ronknottbooks.com by individual years or in three sets of five-years-at-a-time anthologies.
Thank you Mr. Joseph Duerr! You had a profound effect on my life! I will never forget you for taking a chance on me in my effort to encourage others.
Mass of Christian Burial will celebrated (tomorrow) October 3 at 10:00 am at St. Stephen Martyr Church, 2931 Pindell Avenue, Louisville, KY.
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