Paonia, Colorado is, among other things, home to Ed and Betsy Marston, the publisher and editor respectively, of High Country News--that well-known rag published by, and for, "People who Care about the West". The Marstons' tenure at the helm of HCN has been long - half the duration of the paper's entire existence. During that time, its circulation has increased by 17,000 subscribers. There are an average of 700 hits on its web page each day. News stories are "fed" to 99 other papers across the country. It is more widely read by politicians and government officials from local to federal levels; it is required reading in numerous college courses. It continues to be read by other People who Care about the West...ordinary people who live in it. These are appreciable accomplishments and they do justice, I think, to the fervor and dedication of the paper's founder, Tom Bell.
At first glance, and in ignorance, you might think that High Country News is nothing more than Ed and Betsy Marston. They are intelligent, educated, and erudite about the West. The highly respected newspaper moved to Paonia from Lander, WY when the Marstons were hired to run it ...because they didn't want to re-locate. (No offense to our neighbors up north, but who can blame them?) The Marstons are quick to share the glory with those who have gone before and with the hundreds of writers who contribute to the paper. It may come as a surprise to discover not that they are transplants, but that their interest in the West and its complex issues came about almost by chance.
Ed and Betsy are clearly people who have always given a damn. Prior to their baptismal visit to Colorado, it might not have been focused on the environment but they clearly have always been passionate and engaged. They complement each other well in appearance and manner; yet they seem easily individual after long years of marriage. They are an attractive, healthy-looking couple of middle-age and you might not glance twice if you saw them on the street--unless you saw the purpose in their gaze. The "herd" mentality is missing from these two and they seem to illicit a strong response from people, be it positive or otherwise. In this respect they are very much a metaphor of the West. There aren't too many who feel merely indifferent.
In some ways the Marstons' story is much the same as the scores of others who have migrated in the last few decades...first in trickles, now in droves. They are city-born, city-bred (New York, no less), highly educated liberals who gave it all up and moved "out West". The Marstons rode in on an early wave, before the tide swelled and the swamping by outsiders was something folks here had got used to. They are pragmatic but I think the initial days may have been more difficult than they let on. (It's just a guess but I'll hazard that, despite Betsy's gregarious nature, she did not reveal to this small community of less than 2,000 people that she had been arrested and thrown in jail during a civil rights sit-in in college right off the bat.) Depending upon Paonia's definition, their 25-year residency might classify them as locals by now.
The Marstons' first introduction to Colorado was spending summers there for a number of years--having been introduced to it by friends who had a cabin near Paonia. Visiting first as a couple and later as a family with their two children, they decided, at some point, to take a year off from their established careers and stay through a winter. At that time, real estate was expensive and people in Ouray wouldn't rent to "hippies", so they chose Paonia. They never left.
Finances are a pretty personal matter, but it's clear that there was no trust fund or other major source of income floating Ed and Betsy in 1974 when they metamorphosed from "summer people" (now there is a dyed-in-the-wool Eastern expression...) to what I'll call "real" residents. Ed's beginnings were, in fact, quite humble and while journalism was a passion, it was also an extracurricular activity for him during his undergraduate years of college. Physics was his meat and potatoes, his stable foundation, his marketable skill. Betsy, on the other hand, called journalism her career from the get-go. She was an English lit. major turned second-generation journalist, (her father wrote for the New York Post) trying her hand in television.
It was their previous life that the Marstons first spoke of fervently during our interview. They definitely came of age in the 60's and know its issues and politics as their own. They met at City College of New York on the staff of the student-run Observation Post. (Let's call that publication a "crusading liberal newspaper" and not use Ed's other descriptive term. Suffice it to say that folks around these parts still get a bit jumpy when a word has any connotation to red.) Betsy was spending her junior year there, away from the University of Delaware, and Ed was a mentor...of sorts. (Betsy and Ed seem to have differing opinions about what exactly his role was, and I elected not to delve too deeply.)
They both made their marks in civil rights during these years, and not on an insignificant level. Betsy's afore-mentioned arrest was the product of challenging an "Innkeeper's Law" that permitted restaurant owners to deny service to anyone they didn't "like" (we can all guess which ethnic groups were targeted, even though it was 1961). As a result of the trial, the law was found unconstitutional and the case made The New York Times. A diary Betsy kept about the sit-in and surrounding events has been published. Ed, in turn, disclosed the denial to an African-American woman of entry into a sorority through an article in the Observation Post. College officials were infuriated; racism revealed at the supposedly progressive City College made headlines. The event "became tiny compared to the aftermath," he says.
During graduate school (more Physics), Ed organized people door-to-door for Eugene McCarthy. Betsy, through her job as producer of New Jersey Speaks at WNET, addressed issues such as the women's rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the mafia. Her show focusing on Paul Robeson, a black singer and actor who was accused of being a communist, won her an Emmy. We don't concern ourselves as much with civil and social activism in these rural parts and I found it quite refreshing to hear their experiences. In these arenas, as with environmentalism, the Marstons' involvement was more than superficial.
Their first endeavors upon arriving in Paonia didn't last too long. Betsy, as sole proprietor of Paonia Candle Power, made and sold candles. Ed did contract work as a technical writer. Within a year they started to publish a hometown newspaper. Its beginnings are found in nothing more than the Marstons' self-acclaimed boredom. (I can think of far worse reasons to get involved in a thing.) As a result of this condition, and given the limited number of social events in the area, they began attending public meetings. They attended Town and County Commission meetings, Ditch Board meetings, and School Board meetings. You name it and they probably went at one time or another. In the process, they also took issue with the way these meetings were reported to the public. In their words, "the state of local journalism was pretty poor". They began to care about the issues and violà!, The North Fork Times was born. Twenty-four years later it continues to be a successful hometown newspaper, though now under different ownership. You=ve got to admire the moxie of two people who not only start a rural newspaper when they are outsiders, but make a success of it. In the process, they came to know the West at a local level..and became hooked on it.
Betsy and Ed sold the newspaper in 1980, and took a year off to build a house, acting as laborers to their contractor. Then they traveled through Mexico. The journalism bug's bite, however, was tenacious and they decided to start another paper. During the early days of Western Colorado Report they began exchanging ideas with High Country News. They were invited to apply for the positions of publisher and editor when they became available. When offered the jobs, they accepted, and in the latter part of 1983 HCN moved--lock, stock and barrel--to Paonia in the back of a pick up truck. The Marstons proceeded to merge High Country News and Western Colorado Report.
"Neither membership was entirely pleased," Ed says. "We lost 1,000 members from the combined circulation of 4,300. Some HCN subscribers left because they didn't want the paper to move from Lander. Some WCR subscribers left because they wanted a return to a more hometown paper." The network of contributing Western journalists ceased submitting articles as they waited to see if the "new" HCN would fold. Accordingly, for awhile Ed wrote most of them himself, which drew its own criticism. Over a period of time, when it became clear that the paper was not going under, journalists began writing and circulation began to increase once more.
The Marstons came to HCN sixteen years ago, first as journalists, second as environmentalists. In fact, Betsy says they don't think of themselves so much as environmentalists, but as caring about a place because they are grounded in it by having lived there and put down roots. Their intent at the paper was to continue to look at the West as a whole without political boundaries, and to retain its status as a well-respected newspaper about the West. They have certainly achieved that.
The change is that the paper focuses on environmental issues in less of a vacuum these days. The Marstons are integrating the social and cultural dimensions of the West into the environmental conflict--in much the same way that many communities are, in order to try a new tactic for solving problems. This shift from a "pure environmental rag", is the focus of some controversy amongst the environmental community. According to Ed, environmental issues do not exist in isolation. As an example he claims that disenfranchising ranchers, who are the leadership class in many Western communities, is potentially very hazardous. "They are important politically and culturally. They are critical to the social structure of the West. If they're gone, who replaces them as community leaders? We need to think about that carefully," he says. He recalls that Doc and Connie Hatfield were some of the first ranchers he recognized as people, and not as mere symbols of the destruction of the West. "We've written a zillion stories about the damage evil cows had done, because the damage was documented," Betsy remarks, "but how long can you go on blaming without trying to find a workable solution?"
This view has earned the Marstons no little amount of grief, and Ed the scathing classification of a "wannabe rancher". Despite this, he has not, in all his years here, succumbed to the purchase of cowboy boots. (I've seen many folks of the "new West" buy a right fancy pair before they even write the check for the down payment on their ranchette, but that's beside the point.) Betsy and Ed are remarkably thick-skinned, however, and don't seem to take any hostility of this nature personally.
Beyond that, the Marstons seem pleased with the growth of High Country News, a fact that speaks as well I think, to their own growth and understanding of this place. They aspire to preach to more than just the choir. To this end, they continually try to increase the number of subscribers to the paper. Their op. ed. syndicate, "Writers on the Range" is taking off and Betsy has recently inaugurated Radio High Country News. This half-hour program, broadcast in western Colorado, is comprised of regional news, edited interviews with influential westerners, and tidbits from the paper's "Heard Around the West" column.
Betsy and Ed may not be from this place, but they are grounded in it and they are here for good. They may have come across their environmentalism by chance, but they are as committed in their way as any other "tree hugger" I've met. Paonia is their milieu and, as far as I could tell when we walked down Grand Avenue to lunch, they didn't seem any different from anybody else. (It is worth noting that Paonia sports a health food store and an espresso bar these days, so merely walking down the street may not be an accurate indicator.) "It's exciting to live here," they say and you can see they really think that. They are good journalists. They are good environmentalists. They do give a damn. The West could, and does, have worse advocates. In my opinion, there are few better.
Anne Wilson is a regular contributor to the Zephyr