When you own a business with the 134-year history and depth of The Westfield Leader and Union County HAWK’s 59 years, it would be wrong to not think about all those who came before you. For over 20 years, I was lucky enough to work beside and learn from the man who taught me to do just that — Horace Corbin.
Horace, affectionately known to us as “Ho,” gave me my start here at my hometown newspaper — something for which I will be eternally grateful to him. His love of history, and his respect for preserving it, was truly admirable, and something I strive to continue as the owner of the “paper of record.” He made sure that he knew and held on to as much local history as he could, and to impart that knowledge to the staff and anyone else who would listen. It is because of Ho that all the available archives are digitized and searchable.
Many pondered over the years why a then still actively working engineer would buy a newspaper — but I always found it useful to have his brain to pick. He taught me so much about how to think in different ways, how to deconstruct things, and very importantly (and in great detail) what happens after you flush the toilet.
Ho was a great teacher — it was he who taught me the importance of never deleting a rough draft (or anything, for that matter) and that redundancy would always be the saving grace. We spent countless hours together with him teaching me how to write HTML and computer programming — I tried to teach him Twitter and Facebook in the later years, but he saw social media for the cesspool that it is and wanted no part of it.
In my early years with The Leader/ HAWK, our staff spent so much time together, including holidays, that we were more of a family than co-workers. There was always a barbecue, bowling, dinners, poker games and our many nights at The Trolley.
Don’t get me wrong; Horace and I did not always see eye-to-eye on many topics — politics, editorial decisions and the like — over the years. We were well known among the staff (and our office neighbors) for our yelling matches over many of those issues. But Ho and I, being equally stubborn and passionate people, loved every minute of it.
Most people do not know that Ho rescued these newspapers from near bankruptcy when he bought them. He launched an e-edition and website in the mid-nineties, long before other newspapers were thinking about the digital age. He was, in so many ways, ahead of his time in an industry that has often felt slow to change. Ho also was incredibly proud of the many talented journalists to whom he gave their first jobs — no matter if they went on to daily publications, cable news networks or moved into PR — he always remembered them, and loved to keep in touch.
After he sold me the newspapers and all the documents were signed on March 6, 2020, Ho took his bag of stuff and departed The Leader/ HAWK office. He never came back, or said a word to me about what he thought of the papers under my ownership. We often spoke or emailed when I couldn’t find something, or to help me figure out a computer problem. I hope that I have made him proud, even though he probably disagreed with me on most of my decisions — but that’s the way we always liked it.
So thanks, Ho, for everything. You will be missed.
Lauren S. Barr Publisher
