This isn't goodbye: Reflections on 40 years in Journalism | Suzy Fleming Leonard

I'm sitting at my desk wearing the "Aspiring Retiree" T-shirt I bought eight years ago as a joke. Retirement seemed much more aspirational than attainable.

Who knew eight years could pass so quickly? Feb. 16 will be my last day at FLORIDA TODAY.

This month, I celebrated my 60th birthday and my 25th year on the Space Coast. This year also marks my 40th year in journalism, if I count the two years I was a paid editor at my college paper. I like round numbers. The timing seemed right.

I settled on a career in journalism as a teenager after my English teacher praised a short story I wrote. My parents were avid newspaper readers, and I fell in love with humor columnist Erma Bombeck. I was a goofy, painfully shy child who was terrified of strangers and thought journalists sat alone in rooms and poured out their imaginations on paper.

I was a sophomore in college before I realized I'd have to pay my dues as a reporter, talking to lots of strangers, before achieving my columnist goals. Changing my major would have involved ... talking to a stranger. I was stuck.

Eventually, I got past the shyness and learned to love telling other people's stories and to appreciate the responsibility that comes with it.

In the past four decades, I've worked at the Auburn Plainsman, the Selma Times Journal, the Decatur Daily, Wiregrass Today in Dothan, the Montgomery Advertiser, the Gadsden Times and the Tuscaloosa News, all in Alabama; and the Daily Comet in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

During that time, I've covered drug busts, murder trials, child beauty pageants, funerals, hurricanes, space shuttle disasters, 9/11, manned space launches, drag races and Disney food festivals. I rode in helicopters, hot air balloons, monorails, airboats, hay wagons, ambulances and in the back of squad cars.

I interviewed doctors, senators, kindergarteners, a serial killer, lawyers, chefs, grieving relatives, police detectives, grandparents, basketball coaches, veterans, shrimp boat captains, astronauts, jazz singers, Mardi Gras queens, Jerry Clower and Nadia Comăneci.

In Tuscaloosa, the home of Crimson Tide football, I won a sports writing award for a story about tee ball. In Thibodaux, I won for a column about spending an evening staring out a dark second-floor window with a narcotics task force, watching the comings and goings at the suspected drug house next door.

Here on the Space Coast, I earned kudos for a Brevard Idol virtual talent show project and started the 321 Flavor: Where Brevard Eats community on Facebook, which now has almost 62,000 members.

The job has changed in ways I could never have imagined 40 years ago. When I walked into the Auburn Plainsman newsroom in 1984, we had manual typewriters and pasted newspaper pages together using hot wax and X-ACTO knives.

Young journalists quickly learned that a dropped X-ACTO would pierce a leather penny loafer, and black-and-white prints, fresh from the darkroom, would leave sepia stains on a white shirt.

While covering the arrest of a murder suspect in Dothan, I once had to run around the corner to a payphone at 10 p.m. to call my editor, the one and only time I was able to shout: "Stop the presses!"

When I left Tuscaloosa in 1999, editors were weighing the merits of creating a website. Was it worthwhile, or was that interwebs thing a passing fad?

My first day at FLORIDA TODAY was Feb. 15, 1999, and I walked into a bustling newsroom with four desks in the center equipped with dial-up access so we could log into our AOL email accounts.

These days, cellphones, digital cameras and the internet give us 24-hour access to information. Social media gives us 24-hour access to misinformation.

It's not all good. I don't like when people don't know the difference between a legitimate news source and a pay-for-play information outlet or influencer. And it makes me profoundly sad when people denounce solid reporting because it makes them uncomfortable or it doesn't line up with their belief system.

But it's not all bad, either. Gone are the days of waiting 12 hours to share important weather information or a jury verdict.

One thing that hasn't changed. This job is so, so important. The Washington Post's official slogan — "Democracy Dies in Darkness" — has never rung more true. I remain in awe of my FLORIDA TODAY colleagues and they work they continue to do, shining the light of truth into the darkness.

I feel lucky to have been able to make a living by writing. I'm grateful to all the people who let me ask nosy questions and trusted me to get their stories right. I've loved every minute of it, especially the past nine years getting to know the smart, passionate, talented people in the Brevard restaurant industry who feed us so well.

I'm not going anywhere. You'll still run into me at the grocery store and at the corner cafe, so please say hello.

Oh, and look for me right here, in this space, too. My wonderful editor Mara Bellaby has agreed to let me keep writing this column. Give me a couple of weeks off, and I'll be back in March.

It took me 40 years, but I've finally reached my Erma Bombeck goal.

Here's to the next chapter!

Suzy Fleming Leonard is a features journalist with more than three decades of experience. Reach her at sleonard@floridatoday.com. Find her on Facebook: @SuzyFlemingLeonard or on Instagram: @SuzyLeonard. 

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Suzy Fleming Leonard to retire after 40 years in journalism