Funeral services for Parks Smythe Newsome, 81, of Washington, were held Saturday, March 27, 2010, at the First Baptist Church, Washington, with Rev. Chris Townsend officiating. Interment was in Resthaven Cemetery, Washington. He died Thursday, March 25, at his home.
Mr. Newsome was a native of Wilkes County and the son of the late Andrew Jackson Newsome Jr. and the late Flora Anderson Newsome. He was an editor and publisher for 55 years, beginning in 1954 with the Central of Georgia Railroad Magazine. In 1957, he became editor and publisher of
The Chatsworth Times in Northwest Georgia. He sold that newspaper in 1965, and came home to Washington-Wilkes County. He taught in the University of Georgia School of Journalism for two years before buying
The News-Reporter in 1967, where he was editor and publisher until 2004 when he retired. He served on the first Georgia Ethics Commission, and in various capacities in the Georgia Press Association. As editor and publisher of
The News- Reporter, he received citizen of the year awards from the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, Lions Club, and was also presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chamber of Commerce. He was an avid supporter of the 4-H program and of Y-Clubs for students. He was a pilot and a craftsman, and during his retirement enjoyed his woodworking shop and working in his spacious yard. He was a member of the First Baptist Church where he served many terms as chairman of the deacons; and on the pastor search committee three times. In 2009 he was named Deacon Emeritus by the church.
Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Jane Rider Newsome of Washington; a son and daughter-in-law, Mary and Parks Smythe (Sparky) Newsome Jr. of Washington; three grandchildren, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Newsome Holmes and her husband, Justin Holmes, of Athens; Daniel Jumper Newsome, of Decatur, and Molly Caroline Newsome, of Washington; and a sister, Beatrice Newsome Sherrer of Washington.
Pallbearers included Daniel Newsome, Randy Randall, Joe Randall, Mike Sherrer, Bill Cannon, and Mercer Harris.
Hopkins Funeral Home of Washington was in charge of arrangements.
He was the best
“Well done, good and faithful servant ... enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Matthew 25:21
Spoken and recorded more than two millennia ago, those words of Jesus have applied to many who have followed His teachings but no more to any one of those than to Smythe Newsome, former editor and publisher of this newspaper, who died unexpectedly last Thursday.
He was my dad. I knew him for just over 55 years and I
never knew him to do anything to any degree less than his utmost capability.
He took pride in doing a job well whether it was reporting a county commissioners meeting, teaching a Sunday School lesson, photographing a football game, refinishing an old door, or raking every single leaf that fell on his yard last fall. Whatever he did was the best he could produce, always.
Even though there must have been some personal satisfaction from that, his motivation was never selfish. He did his jobs well because he wanted anyone on the receiving end to experience the highest level of quality possible.
Dad was a good man. He treated anyone he met with respect no matter what their station in life. He saw dealing with people as both challenging and rewarding and it was always his goal “to treat everyone fairly and equally.”
He loved his God, his church, his family, and the people of this community more than he ever said in words, either printed or verbalized. But he showed it through his acts of kindness, encouragement, counseling, and sacrifice.
He would joke about “goodness” saying, “I don’t drink, cuss, or chew ... or hang around with girls who do!”
One of the first things I learned from Dad was that “quit” is a bad word. Once you sign on for something, you never just quit. You see it through. You give it your all. You stay true to your word and to your commitments. (Of course, sometimes things just don’t work out and sometimes it is just time to move on. Those situations are different.)
During some recent lengthy and challenging times for a committee on which he was serving, Dad never missed a meeting, never lost his temper, never gave up on the job that was to be done, stayed optimistic about the outcome, and remained faithful to those he had promised to serve. Again, a job well done ... by a good man.
How many jobs did he have at his church? How many committees did he serve on? For how many community boards and service organizations did he volunteer? How many Lions Club chicken dinners did he deliver? How many free News-Reporters did he take to friends and shut-ins?
Many times, after the grueling and hectic hours upon hours of getting the paper ready on Wednesdays, I would walk into his office while waiting for the paper to be printed. There I would find him sleeping in his chair, exhausted from the efforts of the past three days. Then, as soon as the press got going, he would gather up his papers and set out to visit those friends, relatives, and shut-ins who knew he would be there, faithful as always, serving them as he was able.
He helped us get the paper out last week, showing up right on time Wednesday morning to do his share of inserting B-sections into A-sections as I ran the press. When that was finished, he made his deliveries and visited with friends one more time. Then he went home and cut a little grass.
Thursday morning he raked up a bag of leaves and went to The Rider House to repair a damaged gate even though he had complained of some discomfort in his chest.
At lunchtime, Mama got home in time to see him for the last time before he entered into the joy of his Lord.
In heaven, Dad was met by a host of friends with whom he will enjoy “catching up.” And all the newspapers there will now be just a little bit better because he is there to make sure they use all the right words and don’t misplace any apostrophe’s.
Sparky Newsome, editor
No picture can top his words
(Editor’s note: The following previously unpublished column by former editor and publisher Smythe Newsome is taken from a program he provided for the Washington Kiwanis Club about 15 years ago. Since it is so illustrative of his love of words and of newspapers, we offer it here in memory of his life well-lived and his words well-said.) 
To run a weekly newspaper successfully, one must deal with people, with words, with the law, and with banks.
Of the four, people are the most challenging, and the most rewarding.
My premise is that the vast majority of right-thinking people can be quieted if you can show them that you make every reasonable effort to treat everyone fairly and equally. We try to do that, and we get along pretty well.
Our policy is to give equal access to differing viewpoints and to correct errors as soon as they are discovered – or forcefully pointed out – and with equal prominence as the original error, as nearly as possible.
But, believe it or not, some people have strange ideas about the newspaper’s role.
One of the stickiest problems arises when a bride or her mother disagrees with our policy of not publishing wedding accounts more than four weeks after the wedding.
The News-Reporter is a newspaper, not a scrapbook, although it pleases me to know that many things are clipped and saved in scrapbooks.
My feeling is that if the people involved are not sufficiently interested to report the event in a whole month, then neither do we find it of interest after it has become history rather than news.
Some people think that they are special and should not be bound by “stupid rules.” In my own family, a cousin is miffed – to put it mildly – because we did not print her daughter’s wedding six weeks after the fact.
The rewarding side of dealing with people is exemplified by a letter I received.
“Thank you for the joy of reading every week a truly good, prize-winning, hometown newspaper. You are to be commended for your fair treatment of controversial issues, always giving the other person a chance to be heard.”
The joy of a letter like that takes the sting out of accusations that The News-Reporter distorts the news, takes things out of context, misquotes a speaker, or even prints lies. We might do all of those things on occasion but never with malicious intent.
Editors ought to love words and language, for words are the principal tools of the trade. They can be tricky, and they certainly are fascinating.
I like the story told of Noah Webster, whose wife accidentally found him being much too familiar with a housemaid.
“Noah!” she exclaimed. “I’m surprised at you!”
Webster never lost his cool. “No, dear, get it right,” he said. “You are astonished. I am surprised.”
Words have precise meanings that are often ignored or never known.
Continual or continuous? Less or fewer? Farther or further?
A recent pet peeve is the emergence of misused, overused, and abused “healthy” as an adjective applied to things, foods, and habits.
Healthy is properly applied to living things, like people and vegetables, but not to people who are like vegetables. Foods may be healthful. Diets may be healthful. Regular exercise may be healthful. None is healthy.
None is singular, and should be read “not one.”
Another tricky word is news itself.
Adolph Ochs, famous founder and publisher of the New York Times, insisted that news is plural. He sent a reporter on assignment to Louisiana and became impatient when the report was late. He cabled the reporter: “Are there any news?” The smarty-aleck reporter replied: “Nope, not a single new!”
It probably cost him his job, but it was worth it.
Another pet peeve is the old saw: “One picture is worth a thousand words.” Maybe so, but one has to know which picture and what words. You give me 1,000 words and I can have the Lord’s Prayer, the twentythird Psalm, the Hippocratic oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and I’d have enough left over for just about all of the Boy Scout Oath and I wouldn’t trade you for any picture on earth.
Because of our Constitutional provision for a free press and free speech, there are a few laws to restrict newspapers. Because there are some unscrupulous editors who would prostitute the press for their own purpose and gain, some laws are necessary and welcome.
Most notable are libel laws. A newspaper is responsible for its content, whatever the source. We do very little editing of letters to the editor, for instance, but if we print a letter that is libelous, the newspaper is at fault just as much as the writer.
The greatest law is the law of supply and demand. If we don’t maintain our credibility and people begin to doubt our motives and our sanity, readership drops, revenue drops, interest drops, and the newspaper folds.
That brings us to dealing with banks. Contrary to some misguided opinions, newspapers are not guaranteed success, even in a monopoly situation.
Small newspapers are particularly vulnerable to things like the escalating price of newsprint, which is mostly determined by the market of the giant metropolitan papers.
At the News-Reporter, we are told what the price will be and we pay it or we don’t get newsprint. If we don’t have paper, we are out of business.
Many times Sparky and I have turned to our local banks to get us over a rough financial spot, and with their help, we have survived.
We are grateful. Most of all, we are grateful for the terrific support the people and businesses of Wilkes County have given us and continue to give us. It is well above average and we never forget where our support comes from.
I think of a newspaper as a public trust, really owned by the people it serves – except for the financial responsibility. Like any other business, a newspaper has to make a profit or it will not survive.
As I said in the beginning, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do to make a living.
As my good friend, the late Dean John E. Drewry of the UGA School of Journalism would say, “Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else.”
From The Office Cat:
Most of our readers know by now that
Smythe Newsome, my husband, and
Sparky’s dad, died suddenly Thursday about noon. Needless to say, we have all been in a state of shock. As of Tuesday afternoon, we are beginning to get some order back into our lives and are trying to get some order back into things and get this week’s paper together. You may find some errors and you may find that an article you brought in didn’t get in this week’s paper, but it will be in next week. . . . The response and support of the community for us has been overwhelming and we are so grateful for everything that everybody did. You are a great and loving people and we wouldn’t, couldn’t, live anywhere else. . . . More next week. Thank you so much.
