Michael McNutt’s retirement celebration from the NonDoc online news organization was under way earlier this week when he shared a story with me from almost 30 years ago and said I played a role.
A story for which I had no recollection.
Michael is a friend and former colleague at The Oklahoman who served as the newspaper’s Enid correspondent for probably a decade before moving to the Oklahoma City newsroom.
McNutt’s retirement ceremony, organized as a fund raiser for NonDoc, was outstanding. I’ll come back to it.
As for the memory that he shared with me, McNutt recalled that I was assigned to help him conduct a focus group for The Oklahoman in northwest Oklahoma in advance of the 1996 presidential election. Michael said that I called him on the day of the focus group and alerted him that I was going to be a no-show because my wife and I were having a baby — in Abilene, Texas.
I don’t recall the focus group assignment, but I do recall that on June 18, 1996, Paula and I received a call that the baby we hoped to adopt was to be born that very day in Abilene. We jumped into the car, drove 330 miles and arrived at Abilene’s Hendrick Medical Center in time for the birth of our son, Ryan.
Anyway, it was a story that took me back to that milestone event, and obviously was an event that stuck in McNutt’s mind over the remainder of his reporting and editing career.
A St. Louis native, McNutt worked as a reporter and editor for The Oklahoman for nearly 30 years. He had a distinguished post-newspaper career, as well, working for an Oklahoma governor and a state agency, before the recent tour with Nondoc.
NonDoc honored Michael with this week’s celebration because he is retiring as managing editor of the enterprising, not-for-profit online news organization that fills a lot of holes left behind by the decline of traditional newspapers.
McNutt’s retirement celebration brought me and about 75 others to the Will Rogers Theater events center on Monday evening.
Throughout his 40-year journalism career, Michael earned the respect of his colleagues, as well as elected officials across the state and of the people he really served — readers of his reporting and editing through the years.
I didn’t work on a day-to-day basis with Michael at The Oklahoman, but I got to know him as a thoughtful, approachable, empathetic person, as well as a baseball fan who remains devoted to his St. Louis Cardinals in both good times and bad.
A University of Missouri graduate, McNutt began his journalism career for the Rolla, Mo., newspaper before taking a job at the Enid News & Eagle in the 1980s. His wife, Kathryn McNutt, is also a longtime editor/reporter and veteran of The Oklahoman who now works at OKC’s Journal Record.
McNutt told me that he left The Oklahoman’s Enid bureau position in 2000 to become an editor and reporter in the paper’s OKC newsroom. He held editing positions on the state and city desks, and also covered the state capitol for eight years.
After leaving The Oklahoman in 2013, Michael served as spokesman and communications officer for Gov. Mary Fallin, before assuming the role of communications director for Oklahoma’s Office of Juvenile Affairs. He took the Nondoc position about two years ago.
You could see evidence of the respect Michael earned in the audience at the NonDoc retirement ceremony. The room was filled with former newspaper colleagues, as well as state agency and elected officials, including former Gov. Fallin.
In fact, Fallin was a featured speaker, hailing McNutt for the work he did on her behalf, but also sharing some funny moments from his years on her staff. She was joined on stage by Steven Buck, who was OJA Administrator when Michael moved from the Governor’s office to that agency.
Buck shared his thoughts with me on the experience of working with Michael at OJA:
“When I found myself seeking a communications director for the Office of Juvenile Affairs, Michael quickly emerged as the best candidate. I had known him previously and greatly respected his work ethic but to serve as a lead advisor to me, I needed some one with great discernment, communication ability, confidence to hold me accountable and, of most importance, a commitment to mission and serving kids. There was not a single day in our work together that I regretted hiring him; he far exceeded my expectations and remains one of my most trusted colleagues.”
That’s the highest of praise.
I thought Tres Savage, NonDoc’s editor-in-chief, did a terrific job as emcee of the event, which served as a fundraiser for the Sustainable Journalism Endowment. The endowment provides funding for NonDoc to operate.
McNutt was the final speaker of the ceremony and told an intriguing story about how he was ‘almost fired’ from his job as a new reporter for the Enid newspaper just because he did his job. Michael said he received a tip that Enid city councilors met in secret at a local restaurant before each Council meeting and, along with a newspaper photographer, he “crashed” the meeting.
After his story appeared in the next day’s newspaper, a group of councilors marched into the editor’s office demanding that he be fired. The editor stood behind his reporter and told the elected officials to “follow the law.”
As for me, I had a terrific time at McNutt’s sendoff, greeting lots of my former Oklahoman colleagues, sharing time with both Michael and Kathryn and laughing at some of the stories I heard.
It was like a grand reunion.
Thank you, NonDoc, for giving him such a well deserved retirement recognition and to my friend, Steve Buck, for inviting me to sit at your table.
We’re all better off because of the work that Michael McNutt did over his career.
BONUS CONTENT — While Michael told me a story about an event I didn’t recall, I also shared with him about the first — and only — time I visited his office at The Oklahonan’s Enid bureau. Since I was from the “home office” of the paper and worked in the opulent (now former) newsroom along Broadway Extension, I had visions of McNutt working out of a similar abode in Enid. However, it turned out that he worked in a tiny office in a corporate building that was like a 1960s time capsule. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but today all I can see in my mind is the bright green shag carpet in his office.
DOUBLE BONUS CONTENT — As I was visiting with Kathryn McNutt, along with other well wishers, someone brought up Michael’s avocation of making a daily, early morning run, no matter the weather. She told us that when the weather turned cold and the terrain ice covered, she made sure he wore baseball cleats on his run. One of the speakers at the retirement event spoke of once confronting a man in his neighborhood who was running in early morning darkness and wearing a ski mask, hockey jersey and baseball cleats. It was, of course, Michael McNutt.
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