Each October, Jim Christenson and a pal or two disappear into the high country around Ellensburg, Wash., to hunt elk. If the elk aren’t there, it’s OK by Jim: There’s always the quiet landscape and companionship around the fire beneath the cold stars.
Jim takes life as it comes and doesn’t look back. Even when he doesn’t have time to stop and smell the roses, somehow he can still catch their scent.
Maybe that Zen-like approach to life is what it takes to be a hands-on circulation manger for a community newspaper, including this one, with its hundreds of moving pieces.
After 38 years in the business Jim, 60, retires from Pacific Publishing Co. on Thursday, April 25. Chalk up the timing to the tough newspaper economy: Jim would have liked to have worked a couple more years. Typically, he’s already planning on how to move on with his life.
Jim’s going to be missed by his co-workers, a lot of Queen Anne and Magnolia kids and their moms and dads who have worked with him over the years.
Here are a few excerpts from a letter Jim sent to his carriers and drivers on April 12: “The bell is sounding, and I am nearing the end of my 38 years in the newspaper business. It’s been a breathtaking journey…. It has been my pleasure giving all our carriers their first job experience. I smile every time I recall a hiring: all the excitement and anxiety of taking on a route…. There was never a problem that could not be solved…. You are the reason I have stayed so long.”
Bringing it all together
Born in Everett, Wash., in 1952, Jim graduated from Bothell High School and went on to Everett Community College and Central Washington University from when he graduated.
In the mid-‘70s, he became sports editor of the North Shore Citizen. Jim had always dreamed of being a sports writer, but he found his sports heroes, in some cases, to be less-than-stellar human beings. So he changed career paths — the hallmark of someone with their feet on the ground.
Jim, who was tossed out of preschool for being disruptive, says a lot of the credit for believing in himself goes to his fourth-grade teacher.
“She looked like she was 105,” he recalled. “She believed in me. She made me feel important.”
In the 1970s, Jim started in the circulation department with Community Press in Ballard, which published several neighborhood papers. In 1990, Pacific Media Group (now Pacific Publishing Co., parent company of the Queen Anne & Magnolia News), bought a half-dozen neighborhood papers in the city and environs. One thing led to another, and Jim became circulation manager at Pacific Media, a role he’s held since.
Currently, Jim oversees a Queen Anne and Magnolia cast of about 100 kids and drivers. Each kid-carrier totes some 20 to 50 papers on their weekly routes.
How does he keep track of everything?
“I’m about as organized as you can get,” Jim said.
True: Jim presides over a warren of Excel spreadsheets. If the News doesn’t arrive at a subscriber’s doorstep, Jim gets the call. If a child is short of rubber bands or plastic bags (the rain, you know), Jim gets the call. If a child is sick and can’t deliver that week — call Jim.
Family involvement
Jim visits the house of each new carrier and spends up to an hour with parent and child.
“If a parent doesn’t get involved, it won’t work,” he said. “A parent has to be there for them — just like [with] homework.”
Here are a few samples of e-mails sent to Jim after his April 12 farewell letter:
“Congratulations on your retirement. I know you have touched many a young life, including my two boys. It means a lot to be given responsibility at such young ages and to have an adult support such.”
“Thank you, Jim, for the kind letter about your upcoming retirement. It’s great for our kids to be able to hear about long-term career success and accomplishment, along with a good dose of gratitude. Your presence and careful stewardship of these young carriers will be missed.”
“It was heartwarming to read your letter. You’ve done such great things for our communities and young people that you’ve touched. A huge thank you from myself and my boys for giving them to opportunity to do this job.”
“Parents are nice,” Jim reflected. “There are those who get it, what it’s all about, who say, ‘Thank you for the opportunity.’ I let them know I appreciate them in return.”
A ‘people person’
Jim has seen the city change over the decades: “The new people moving in don’t have the same community sense; Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard have kind of kept it together. Parents and kids haven’t changed as much as everything else has changed in the city.”
Jim knows Seattle as only a circulation manager could: “I can drive through a neighborhood and point out houses where kids used to live, who delivered our papers. I can remember their names and route numbers.”
And he remembers the aging subscribers who’ve died and those who sometimes called him up because they didn’t have anyone else to talk to.
“I’m a people person,” Jim said. “It’s the people.”
Now, Jim and his significant other plan to travel around the country, month to month, trailer hookup to trailer hookup, just taking it easy.
“I want to meet the people more than the monuments,” Jim said.
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