News-Record.com

Jerry Bledsoe should be next.

John --
Since you were unable to attend the presentation, I thought you and your blog readers might be interested in the comments I made, since I had the honor of giving Jim his certificate on behalf of Gov. Easley. Here they are:

Jim Schlosser is one of those reporters who make readers really read the newspaper. Mike Orren, a former Greensboro resident, described it in a blog posting after word of Jim's retirement got out. "One of the reasons I so love local (news) is that I grew up on a really good local newspaper -- one that really made local news come alive. Jim was the first reporter to make me a byline browser. As a teen, I'd pick up the morning paper and scan for his byline to make sure I read his stories first."

Alfred Hamilton, a former News & Record editor, said: "Schlosser is at his best when he discovers something new about Greensboro and Guilford County."

Day after day, for 41 years, Jim has helped people in Greensboro, Guilford County and the Triad, who picked up the Greensboro Daily News, the Greensboro Record or the Greensboro News & Record, see things in their backyards and this town that they'd always looked at, but never noticed. To elaborate a bit on how John Robinson described Jim's work: He took a slice of life and in a single bite, gave us a taste of all the ingredients.

The Joseph M. Bryan Foundation recognized him for the way he wrote about Greensboro's "ordinary and extraordinary people, her past, present and future, and her strengths and weaknesses."

During his reporting career he's covered just about every possible kind of story, politics from the precinct caucus to the national political convention, city council swearing-ins to presidential inaugurations and sandlot baseball to the Olympics and Super Bowls.

Jim is 65 and thankfully still doing a weekly column. His many awards have been repeated in various tributes.

But let me tell you, as someone who had the luck to work for eight years on the same staff as Jim: His work made the good work of others around him, reporters and editors, shine even more brightly. Greta Medlin put it best when she said that Jim could take a story that seemed as if nobody would want to look at it, and transform it into a tale that everyone wanted to read and didn't want to end.

To the degree that his sometimes less than pristine copy gave editors heart burn, I say fine. Then again, being a serial mis-speller myself, I felt that at least my work had one small thing in common with Jim's. As much as it is a delight to read his stories, it has been an even greater pleasure to have worked beside him and say I was once his colleague.

All of this is simply prelude to this presentation I have the honor to make on behalf of my boss, Gov. Mike Easley. I want to present you with this Order of the Long Leaf Pine. It is the highest civilian honor given by the governor to North Carolinians who have a proven record of outstanding service to the state. Let me read the certificate:

"Michael F. Easley, governor, reposing special confidence in the integrity, learning and zeal of Jim Schlosser: I do by those present, confer The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary privileged to enjoy fully all rights granted to members of this exalted order, among which is the special privilege to propose the following North Carolina Toast in selected company anywhere in the free world:
Here's to the land
Of the long leaf pine.
The summer land
Where the sun doth shine.
Where the weak grow strong
And the strong grow great.
Here's to down-home
The Old North State!

Jim, thank you for your great work, being a great colleague and an outstanding North Carolinian.
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