The home office of Laurence "Laurie" Paddock is filled with the memorabilia of genverations of Boulder newspaper owners. (Photo by Amy Brouillette)

By Amy Brouillette

It is exactly as one might imagine a retired newspaper editor's study would look: Rows of bookshelves line the walls from floor to ceiling, with stacks of papers and newspaper clippings scattered across a large L-shaped desk, his old nameplate from his days in the newsroom amid the desktop clutter.

Side-by-side on Laurence "Laurie" Paddock's ('50) study wall hang two hallmarks to his life's work and family legacy. The first is a framed front page from the Boulder Daily Camera dated Aug. 17, 1992, with a headline that reads "The End of An Era," marking the day he stepped down after 32 years as editor of the local daily his family helped found a century earlier. Next to it is an award Paddock received in 2004 at the 60th anniversary of the Boulder Historical Museum honoring his lifelong part in preserving the city's history. The award is named after Paddock's father, A.A. "Gov." Paddock who helped found the Boulder Historical Society in 1944.

Managing the vast collection of historical documents, photographs and memorabilia amassed by his family and now housed at the Boulder Public Library's Carnegie Branch Library for Local History and at the Boulder Historical Museum is how Paddock, 76, spends much of his retirement. His actual exit from the paper lasted nearly a decade, as he stayed on at the Camera as editor emeritus and member of the paper's editorial board until 2001. His final retirement marked the first time that the Paddock name would not grace the masthead of the local daily since his grandfather, Lucius Carver "L.C." Paddock, helped start the paper in 1892.

The Paddock tradition at the Camera goes three generations deep. L.C. Paddock acted as the paper's first editor and publisher until 1940, followed by his son, A.A. Paddock, who took over as editor until 1960 and as publisher until his death in 1961. Laurie Paddock stepped into the editor's seat in 1960 at age 33, back when the Camera was a just a 16-page evening paper printed with hot-metal type.

"So much has changed since then," Paddock said, sitting in his study at his home just below Chautauqua Park, where he lives with his wife, Harriett. In his three-decade tenure at the Camera, Paddock said he witnessed the paper's transition from black-and-white to color, from lead type to computer type, from an evening paper to a morning print, and – many say, regretfully – from family ownership to corporate. Even so, Paddock said the "nuts and bolts" of journalism remain the same. "Reporters still go out to cover the news, just like they always have."

In 1969, the Paddock family sold the paper to the Knight newspaper chain, which a few years later merged with Ridder. The sale was lamented by many locals and Camera staffers, who worried that the paper's changing of hands from the Paddock family to a corporation signaled the end of the Camera's beloved hometown connection. Paddock, however, stayed on as editor, reporting over the years to a series of executive editors and maintaining the paper's link to the community that many feared would be lost.

"He set the baseline for Knight – you'd better take care of my community or else," said Barrie Hartman, executive editor at the Camera from 1983 to 1991. Hartman said that over the years, he developed a deep respect for Paddock inside the newsroom and out – a respect that's only grown.

"He represents a different breed of newspaper editor," he said. "It's rare these days to find an editor with such deep ties to the community and such loyalty to one paper."

The Camera came under new ownership again in 1997. In a deal between E.W. Scripps and Knight-Ridder, Knight-Ridder received The Monterey County Herald and The San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune in exchange for Boulder Publishing Inc. and its two papers, the Daily Camera and the Broomfield Enterprise.
A passion inherited from his father, Paddock turned his focus to restoring the Camera's archives and his family's growing collection of Boulder memorabilia. In the 1920s, after returning from combat in World War II, A.A. Paddock began amassing items related to Boulder's history, which he stored in an old building behind the Camera headquarters at 11th and Pearl streets.

The collection was moved several times over the years and at one point was kept at the old Safeway store, which is now Wild Oats, at Broadway and Arapahoe Avenue. In 1959, a fire destroyed some of the collection, including a stash of musical instruments being stored at a building on 20th and Pearl streets.

In 1964, the Paddocks tore down the old Camera building on 11th and Pearl and built a new one on the site, this time with a library to safely store the ever-growing collection. Today, much of Paddock's collection-management duties involve transporting materials from the Camera to Boulder Public Library's Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, where the photographs and documents can be properly stored and archived. "That's why I really got the Paddock award," he joked. "It was really just for transporting the material across town."

Not true, says Laura Lee, collections manager at the Boulder History Museum. "If it weren't for the Paddock family and for Laurie dedicating their collection and their time to preserving it, we simply wouldn't be what we are today," she said. Lee works closely with Paddock, saying that his influence goes far beyond just his material contribution to the museum and to Boulder's history. "He's just a really special guy, and I feel truly fortunate to work with him," she said.

That same sentiment, echoed by nearly every one who knows him, has earned Paddock an elder-statesman status about town. Since retiring, he's racked up a series of commendations for his community work, including the Community Foundation's Stan Black Award in 2000, honoring his role in creating the city's Parks and Recreation Department and, among a long list of accomplishments, for successfully rallying citizens to save Chautauqua Auditorium from demolition.
Last year, along with the nod from the Boulder Historical Society, Paddock's name was entered into Boulder's Business Hall of Fame. He's an active member of Boulder's Rotary Club and a board member at Frasier Meadows Manor, a local retirement community – and, above all, an avid CU Buff fan.

Meanwhile, he said he remains a loyal reader and fan of the daily paper his family helped create. "Every once in a while, I'll even read the (Denver) Post," he said.