Thank you, Sean

Welcome back to the Oxford Free Press, and welcome to our new Editor Aidan Cornue. Before resuming a weekly report on our local seasonal food (corn on the cob next week), I want to devote this week’s column to an appreciation of our departed Editor Sean Scott. I held back this column until after Sean’s departure because I didn’t want him to have to edit it.

I first met Sean in November 2023, when he was preparing a story for the Journal-News on the update of Oxford Township’s Land Use Plan. Sean was double majoring at Miami University in journalism and urban and regional planning (with a certificate in GIS) in my home department of geography.

When the Journal-News downgraded and ultimately killed special coverage of Oxford in January 2024, Sean – then Editor-in-Chief of The Miami Student (TMS) – led an expansion of Oxford coverage by that newspaper. As part of that expansion, Sean invited me to move to TMS my weekly column about local food in Oxford that the Journal-News no longer wanted.

After a lifetime of editing student papers (and a Journal-News editor who never touched my weekly columns), now I was being edited – and heavily – by Miami students. Some of that editing was style (% or percent), but a lot of it was their “improvements.” I loved it, and I got a lot of mileage out of it with my friends. And I could attend some of the Wednesday and Sunday night TMS staff meetings!

When John Skillings, Richard Campbell and I were plotting to start the Oxford Free Press during the first half of 2024, the obvious choice for a founding editor was Sean. We courted Sean and finally talked him into it. Sean got to start his first full-time post-graduation job with an enormous advantage: as TMS Editor-in-Chief, he was already much respected – even beloved –  by the leadership of Oxford and Miami.

One thing that John, Richard and I got wrong was the amount of time needed to launch the Oxford Free Press. We had anticipated a several-month ramp-up. Instead, Sean gave us a full- blown digital paper in his first week on the job, and the print paper in his first month. He is leaving behind a workflow process and what used to be called a Rolodex of contacts that will serve his successor, Aidan Cornue, well.

Years ago, I was taught two journalist maxims: get the 5 “W’s” (who, what, when, where, why) in the first one or two sentences, and never use the first personal singular. Styles have changed.

On the rare occasion that Sean has edited my weekly columns, it was usually to start with an “interesting” angle on the story and to get more of “I” in it.

Sean is a private person, and he maintained that privacy in our small town. Now that he is gone, and no longer able to edit this story, I will share a personal item. When Sean settled into his “grown-up” residence in Oxford, just about the first thing he did was adopt two cats – not just one – from Oxford Catty Shack. The cats are named for characters from “Game of Thrones,” but I forget which characters.

I hope the cats enjoy Maine. Thanks again, Sean. You will always be the only “Founding” Editor of the Oxford Free Press. And welcome Aidan; we are thrilled to have you here.

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.