News-Record.com

It seems like ancient history, but back in 1980 and 1981, new White House press secretary Tony Snow cranked out conservative editorials for the Greensboro Record.

He was part of a move that began in about 1977 to make the larger, morning Daily News and the afternoon Record's editorial pages distinct from each other philosophically.

The Daily News took a moderate to liberal approach to local, state and national affairs. The Record became the city's conservative voice.

Bill Cheshire, who had replaced Jesse Helms place as editorialist for a Raleigh television station, was hired to head the Record's page. He brought in two talented young writers, Terry Eastland (later Attorney General Ed Meese's press secretary) and Joe Duggan.

When Cheshire left, Eastland, who had departed for the San Diego paper, returned as his replacement. When Duggan later left to join the Richmond paper, Eastland hired Snow to replace him.

Snow was born in Kentucky and grew up in Ohio, graduated from Davidson College and did a graduate school stint at the University of Chicago.

Before joining The Record, he taught school in Kenya and Ohio and did advocacy work for the disabled in North Carolina, according to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. Wikipedia also says Snow is talented musician who plays flute, saxophone and guitar and performs in a Washington band, "Beats Workin'."

At the Record, Snow wrote unsigned editorials and signed editorial columns. One of the later had the memorable title, "Uncle Sam - the Bozo of the Bozarks."

To gain reporting experience, Snow took leave of the editorial department brielfy and covered news for The Record. His stories carried headlines such as, "Man Held in Probe of Three Deaths."

News & Record columnist Rosemary Roberts, who was writing editorials for the Daily News back then, remembers Snow as a young man with "a very clever sense of humor" and a good writer.

Even though she was on the Daily News, she said the Record's editorial writers then were brilliant, dispite the fact she often disagreed with the position expoused.

Snow left in 1981 to join the Virginia-Pilot in Norfolk. He later wrote editorials for the Detroit News and then became editorial page editor of the Washington Times. During the first Bush administration, he left the Times to become Bush's chief speech writer.

He and the writer he replaced in Greensboro, Duggan, had become friends. Snow hired Duggan as an assistant.

Duggin, now a political appointee to the U.S. Agency for International Development, says, "I'm glad to be somewhat back on the same team he is. He has a lot to offer."

Duggan remembers being impressed with Snow after the first Bush lost for re-election.

"He had to rebuild his career," he says. "I admired him for his courage and tenacity."

Snow returned to the Detroit paper as a columnistin Washington. He later wrote a column for USA Today and another column syndicated in 200 newspapers. In 1996, he joined Fox, doing both radio and television commentary. He also continued to write a column.

"He has always been very enterprising," Duggan says.

In taking the White House job, Duggan says, Snow is making a smart move. It demonstrates the guts that Duggan always knew Snow possessed. Snow is walking away from a lucrative career with Fox News.

Duggan also says Snow has the right temperament and character to be an effective press secretary.

"He's a genuinely nice person and he projects it to the public,"
Duggan says.

At 50, Snow apparently has overcome a struggle with colon cancer. Otherwise, he wouldn't be taking a White House job that, as Rosemary Roberts says, "is 24-7." A press secretary must always be available to a news media that always needs feeding.

Roberts is not sure if Snow is making the right move, theorizing, "I think he wants something new."

Of course, when Bush leaves office in early 2009, Snow can always return to Fox or one of the political talk cable channels.