Not long ago I was in the office of the Boothbay Register, which for as long as I’ve known it has been located on Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor. The outside of the building looks about the same but inside it’s changed a good deal. In December 1978 when I arrived in Maine from Colorado my first newspaper job was working for the Register. Dan DeRepentigny was the owner then, he was also the owner or a part-owner of the Tugboat Restaurant where we sometimes met on Friday afternoons for our editorial meetings.

Some of the others who worked for the newspaper then included Mary Brewer who was the Register’s editor and Velma Sutter, the editor of the Wiscasset Newspaper. There was also Bill Harris, the graphic artist and David McKown, he was responsible for the newspaper deliveries and whatever else needed doing. I can see them all clearly in my mind’s eye although sadly, all of them are gone now.

It wasn’t long after I started covering Wiscasset, Edgecomb and Westport for the Register that Howard Cowan of Oklahoma purchased the newspaper. Howard began his career as a newspaper reporter. He was a contemporary of the legendary CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite; the two worked as war correspondents during World War II, Cronkite for United Press International and Howard for the Associated Press.

That same summer of 1979, Cronkite sailed his yacht, Wyntje to Boothbay Harbor. When Mr. Cowan heard about this he arranged to meet Mr. Cronkite for dinner at the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club. Mr. Cowan asked me to be there to take pictures for the Boothbay Register. I remember borrowing a blue sports coat and tie from a friend and worrying all day about the assignment. I’m pretty sure it was in the latter part of June. When I got to the yacht club, Mr. Cowan insisted on candid shots in the lobby and without the use of a flash.

Of course, there was no digital photography back then. I took pictures with a Nikon 35mm camera and shot the pictures in black & white. But, in spite of all my efforts in the darkroom, the results were predictable, dark and grainy pictures. I’m fairly certain Russell Wiggins was there for dinner as well. The picture was of the three men talking to one another in the dimly lit wood-paneled lobby. Mr. Wiggins owned the Ellsworth American, an award-winning weekly newspaper based in Ellsworth. Earlier in his career he had been chief editor of the Washington Post in Washington, D.C. Naturally, for me a recent graduate from Colorado State University with a degree in journalism, these guys were heroes to be admired as well as envied.

Looking back, I regret not having interviewed these men who had experienced so much in their lives. In anchoring the CBS Evening News, Cronkite had reported on dozens of notable world events, the Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first moon walk and more. There were so many questions I would have liked to have asked but truth be told, I wasn’t asked to stay for dinner.

Phil Di Vece earned a B.A. in journalism studies from Colorado State University and an M.A. in journalism at the University of South Florida. He is the author of three Wiscasset books and is a frequent news contributor to the Wiscasset Newspaper and Boothbay Register. He resides in Wiscasset. Contact him at pdivece@roadrunner.com