 Sue Dickens, photo by Montse Alvarado
Sue Dickens Editor, Trent Hills Now |
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Author: Susan Pomfret
Photos: As credited December 2018 |
Sue Dickens (right) with Susan Fedorka, Ranney Gorge Runner, May 2018, Photo by Montse Alvarado
Sue Dickens, Editor of the online news magazine Trent Hills Now, has been a journalist for over 45 years. Her chosen profession has given her much more than a job and a pay cheque. It’s allowed her to live her life the way she wanted to live it, doing the things she wanted to do. “It gave me a persona and a life,” she says.
She grew up in Ottawa and, despite being shy in her youth, showed early promise of what was to come. Her high school yearbook noted that she had “the gift of the gab”. Words and language have always been a passion for her. “I love what they can do,” she says, "how they can fire the mind and the imagination”.
Sue Dickens, Editor of the online news magazine Trent Hills Now, has been a journalist for over 45 years. Her chosen profession has given her much more than a job and a pay cheque. It’s allowed her to live her life the way she wanted to live it, doing the things she wanted to do. “It gave me a persona and a life,” she says.
She grew up in Ottawa and, despite being shy in her youth, showed early promise of what was to come. Her high school yearbook noted that she had “the gift of the gab”. Words and language have always been a passion for her. “I love what they can do,” she says, "how they can fire the mind and the imagination”.
Sue opted for journalism over business when deciding on her course of study at Carleton University. “I chose journalism because it was practical,” she recalls. “There were hardly any women doing it back then. I wanted something different, I was looking for something more”.
She landed her first job at an Ontario community weekly newspaper in the late 1970’s. “I’ve just got to believe that there’s a plan out there somewhere,” she maintains. “So much of what life has offered me just happened, and it carried me along”. Her husband at the time was an OPP officer and the couple moved to the Tri-Towns (Cobalt, Haileybury, New Liskeard) when he was stationed with the detachment in Haileybury. She worked at The Temiskaming Speaker in neighbouring New Liskeard. “I had a lot of autonomy there,” she laughs. “Those were the old days when it was okay for the editor to keep a mickey in his desk.”
She landed her first job at an Ontario community weekly newspaper in the late 1970’s. “I’ve just got to believe that there’s a plan out there somewhere,” she maintains. “So much of what life has offered me just happened, and it carried me along”. Her husband at the time was an OPP officer and the couple moved to the Tri-Towns (Cobalt, Haileybury, New Liskeard) when he was stationed with the detachment in Haileybury. She worked at The Temiskaming Speaker in neighbouring New Liskeard. “I had a lot of autonomy there,” she laughs. “Those were the old days when it was okay for the editor to keep a mickey in his desk.”
After a few years, they moved back to the Ottawa area due to her father-in-law’s failing health, settling in Carlton Place, a small community about 45 km west of the city. She signed on with the Carlton Place Review, a small community weekly there. Sue and her husband parted ways not long afterwards. "That’s when I started my journey of independence,” she says. “I was born with a bit of the gypsy in me. My grandfather was like that. He was an artist and writer who developed his own method to teach piano”.
Sue’s journey has led her all over Ontario. “I’ve been so blessed,” she declares. “I went where doors were open, and there were lots of closed doors to women in the early days.” Most jobs were relatively short-term as is the norm in the print media business. “The thing about community papers is that you end up recycling the same stories year after year. Every community is the same in some ways. They all have their high rollers and their charitable organizations and their events.”
She lived in the east end of Toronto for awhile, working as a reporter for The Misssissauga Review. “I just didn’t click in the city,” she states. “I never felt comfortable”. Her most memorable experiences in the field involved the start-up of brand new community newspapers. One was in Belleville at a newly-launched weekly where the staff did everything from writing stories to layout. She loved the work and the team atmosphere, but moved on when they were forced to downsize a few years later. A start-up in Dryden offered her a similar clean-slate opportunity in the late 80’s. Dryden, located halfway between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, has the distinction of being the smallest community in Ontario to bear the designation of “city”.
From day one, Sue reports that she preferred to take an upbeat approach to journalism whenever possible. "There’s enough bad news in the world," she says. She remembers one of her major stories, covering a plane crash near Dryden. The OPP took a media crew to the scene before allowing access to the public. Air Ontario Flight 1363 was a scheduled passenger flight en route from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg with an intermediate stop in Dryden. The craft crashed shortly after takeoff from Dryden Regional Airport in March 1989 due to ice on its wings, killing 21 of the 65 passengers aboard and three of the four crew members. “My headline didn’t say that 24 people were killed,” she recalls. “It said that 45 people survived. I couldn’t believe that anyone walked away from that”.
Although her first love is community weekly newspapers, she’s dabbled in dailies as well. She moved to Welland at one point, the home of dear friends, and worked for the Welland Tribune. In an educational departure from her usual occupation, she spent four years at The Peterborough Examiner at a desk job, learning the ins and outs of layout. In retrospect, she pronounces her tenure at the daily Niagara Review, “quite stressful. We had to do everything,” she reports, “attend the meetings, write the stories, do the layout, and we never really had enough time to do any of those things properly.”
Although her first love is community weekly newspapers, she’s dabbled in dailies as well. She moved to Welland at one point, the home of dear friends, and worked for the Welland Tribune. In an educational departure from her usual occupation, she spent four years at The Peterborough Examiner at a desk job, learning the ins and outs of layout. In retrospect, she pronounces her tenure at the daily Niagara Review, “quite stressful. We had to do everything,” she reports, “attend the meetings, write the stories, do the layout, and we never really had enough time to do any of those things properly.”
Sue has deviated from the role of journalist at times, but not for long. She filled a maternity leave contract with the Ministry of Natural Resources as a Fire Information Officer, acting as a communications conduit between the Ministry and the news media. It turned out to be a job she thoroughly enjoyed. “I was feeding the media stories instead of being the media,” she says. “It was a government job and it paid well. I made more in 20 hours a week than I usually made working full-time. I applied for every Fire Information Officer job that came up for awhile after that but I never got another one.”
A front desk position at a community newspaper in Brighton unexpectedly led to five years as Managing Editor of the independent Canadian Trucking News. “I’d meet a truck driver at a truck stop for the interview,” she grins, “and he’d be asking why? What is there to say about a truck driver?” Since she loves nothing better than to share people’s stories, there was generally lots to say about each and every truck driver.
When her parents passed, they left her enough of an inheritance to buy a home. She knew the Trent Hills area from the time she’d spent in Belleville and Peterborough. “I’d always found this area so attractive,” she remembers. “It’s gorgeous. This was the only move I ever made that wasn’t because of a job”. She initially settled in Hastings and eventually found her dream home, a renovated war house in Campbellford, where she lives happily to this day.
Despite choosing a location rather than a job for the first time in her life, destiny was seemingly on her side. Shortly after the move, she landed a freelance position with a Metroland community paper, EMC (now folded). “For the past couple of decades” she laughs, “newspapers have changed hands so many times that you never know who you’re working for”.
The universe has continued to unfurl opportunities for her as required. Sue worked for the Community Press for a time and then for The Trent Hills Independent, one of the TorStar chain of community papers that was acquired and subsequently folded by Postmedia in late 2017. “It’s a tough time for the print media business,” she says. “There are a lot of out-of-work journalists, and predictions for 2019 are quite dire”.
Did she consider retirement when the Trent Hills Independent closed? No. “Like everybody else, I have bills to pay,” she explains, “and what would I do with my time? I always seem to land on my feet.” Since retirement held no appeal, she signed on with News Now Network, an online community news network which also hosts local news platforms in Cobourg, Port Hope, Brighton and the Township of Cramahe.
Did she consider retirement when the Trent Hills Independent closed? No. “Like everybody else, I have bills to pay,” she explains, “and what would I do with my time? I always seem to land on my feet.” Since retirement held no appeal, she signed on with News Now Network, an online community news network which also hosts local news platforms in Cobourg, Port Hope, Brighton and the Township of Cramahe.
The switch from print to digital media has been a positive one for her and she believes that it is the way of the future. “My experience made it an easy transition,” she says. “My boss made it an easy transition. I get to do everything on my own. Digital is fun and it accommodates my long-windedness.”
Her schedule is a busy one, some might even say frenetic. As Editor of Trent Hills Now, she is a one-man band, covering all the news that’s fit to print, as the saying goes, from municipal council meetings to community events and everything in between. Although she’s a self-defined “newshound” and has rubbed shoulders with some high powered politicians and other notable figures over the years, her favourite part of the job is still meeting people and sharing their stories.
Her schedule is a busy one, some might even say frenetic. As Editor of Trent Hills Now, she is a one-man band, covering all the news that’s fit to print, as the saying goes, from municipal council meetings to community events and everything in between. Although she’s a self-defined “newshound” and has rubbed shoulders with some high powered politicians and other notable figures over the years, her favourite part of the job is still meeting people and sharing their stories.
Sue Dickens with Earl McLean, CMH Polar Bear Plunge, Campbellford, January 2018, Photo by Anne Marie Taylor-Powney
“My passion is to tell the story of a community, its people, its accomplishments, its challenges, its reality. Every town has its characters, its politicians, its business people, sometimes they are one and the same. From the teachers to the doctors, lawyers, nurses, farmers, students, firefighters, emergency personnel, and folks who just make Trent Hills what it is, a destination and their home, Trent Hills is who they are and they make life real,” reads her bio on the Trent Hills Now website.
Tuxie, one of Sue's ferals. Photo by Sue Dickens
Sue lists her hobbies as reading, writing, and helping feral cats and strays. Her passion for cats has developed since she moved to Campbellford and found “dozens” of cats living in a feral colony in a neighbouring field. Over the past number of years, she has worked steadily towards having the animals spayed and neutered, as well as successfully relocating a large part of the colony to a comfortable barn on a local farm. Some of the younger felines have been socialized and rehomed through local rescue centres. Her animal activism doesn’t stop there. As well as input from feral rescue networks throughout the US and Canada, Sue’s social media page is a fount of information about lost and found pets as well as initiatives and petitions for humane causes including wildlife preservation, aquatic and circus animals in captivity, dog fighting, trophy hunting and treatment of animals destined for slaughter. A self-confessed “crazy cat lady”, she lives with six cats in house and cares for another three ferals on her property.
Sue plans to write a book when and if she ever actually does retire, called Ramblings of a Rural Reporter. “It’ll be about my career and my life,” she says. She’s been collecting files and notes for some time but doesn’t want to start on the actual writing until she can fully dedicate herself to it, a feat which would hardly be possible with her current demanding schedule.
Sue Dickens is a woman who has followed her chosen path through an era when it wasn’t easy for women to make a name for themselves in her business. She has maximized her passions for the language and for writing, and in so doing, built a life and a persona that has served her and her gypsy instincts well. “I’ve never met anyone who has a job I’d rather have than mine,” she says. She admits to enjoying the sight of her name in print from time to time, but that’s not the rewarding part. “It’s the community out there, I wouldn’t be here without them. I love seeing people’s reactions to their stories, seeing how thrilled they are! That’s the real thanks I get for what I do.”
Sue’s biography on Linked In reads, “I love life and live it to the fullest with respect for others while taking care of any vulnerable creatures in nature that come down my pathway.” What, I ask you, could be more inspiring than that?
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