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A Longtime Post-Dispatch Writer Says Goodbye to the Newsroom | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

2 years ago

May 21, 2023

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click to enlarge SUBMITTED Valerie Schremp Hahn has now packed up her desk at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. On Tuesday, Valerie Schremp Hahn left the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Post-Dispatch is her hometown newspaper, and she’d written for it for 26 years. As a features writer, Hahn’s byline has often accompanied some of the most enjoyable stories in it, but now she joins a long line of colleagues who’ve moved on this year — some by choice, others not. Hahn’s departure was her idea. (She starts a new job as an associate editor for a national nonprofit group on June 1.) And on her way out the door, she shared some reflections with colleagues in a farewell email that will likely resonate with anyone who’s given their love, in her words, to an industry that “sometimes doesn’t love you back.”We’re reprinting her farewell here with her permission, and with one light edit to include a thought she wished she’d added on the first pass. Contrary to the subject line of her email, she is not a writer who needs much editing at all. We will miss reading her work. Subject: One more thing from me that could probably use a good edit Hi, all – I sometimes roll my eyes at these farewell emails and can’t read them. I fully understand if you can’t and this is super annoying — if you skip to the end, that’s where you’ll find the important stuff, my contact information. I’ve been thinking a lot about metaphors — particularly, transportation disaster metaphors. A certain Pulitzer-winning photographer we love to hate and hate to love has compared this newspaper ride to a plummeting plane — and he’s ready to strap in and go down with it, but probably hoping it will right itself. I’ve always referred to myself as a violinist on the Titanic, something that’s a little easier to do over in features because we do cover music, after all. But we know how the Titanic situation turned out — I’m not sure if any violinists survived — and I’m not quite ready to see this place as a husk on the ocean floor. I told a few of you about this last night at my sendoff, but now I’m thinking about this place as a train. A bit of a crazy train. You probably have to help me workshop this a bit more. I’m not exactly sure who sits in the conductor’s seat — Lee corporate or maybe Father Time himself. Usually the train just chugs along, and sometimes it slows down, and occasionally it speeds up and gets a little like a trippy Willy Wonka ride while the conductor cranks up the Thomas the Train theme song at full volume and faster speed over the PA system, and we all look up at each other like, “What the hell?” Sometimes, people throw crap on the tracks, or lob tear gas canisters or fire guns or maybe just insults. For the most part, the train is full of hard-working, smart, funny people with the tray tables holding our laptops. We’re just keeping our heads down, trying to get things done, trying to get a little closer to the truth. The train used to be more crowded — full of characters, of smarter people than us, and a few who pushed around electronic files all day or played grabass and probably shouldn’t have been let on in the first place. We’ve saved seats for some and put our bags next to us to avoid others. We gaze at even more empty seats — some people were pushed off the train, and that’s a bad way to go.It’s still nice to have people there, even if some of us kinda like sitting in our bathrobes. And hey, now the train car has WiFi. Like, finally. The club car used to offer better snacks — like those Gourmet to Go Box lunches with the lemon bars and little cups of pasta salad we’d get for newsroom trainings, or the meals we’d expense during an out-of-town journalism seminar the paper used to pay for. But there’s usually still pizza on election night, or a newsroom cheerleader brings in tons of smoked brisket and cheese and everybody brings in other stuff to round it out and then suddenly there’s a Stone Soup kind of thing going on. (Related: I’ve left you all that half-full jar of hard candy from Aldi at my desk, along with a half-eaten bag of barbecue chips. I ate the other half.) And then there’s the people out the window. There’s the politicians with their hacker patrols and the politicians running away with their fists in the air, the weirdos who send all the weirdo email, the pundits and all the social media, all the people who need help, the people who call us fake news, the dead bodies, the fleeing Famous-Barr ad reps and the smoldering landscape of an increasingly damaged system. But then there’s the baby zoo animals and the renovated entertainment complexes and the scientists and the committees of do-gooders and people with big and small checkbooks still making a difference. There’s our proud parents, our English teachers, our former colleagues and thousands of readers who, like us, are just minding their own business, reading our work, trying to figure out who to vote for and how to better themselves and their families and their communities. There’s the newspapers themselves if they make it out the windows, sometimes chucked under the neighbor’s bushes. They’re probably wet. But good news: digital is on the upswing. Some of us, probably all of us, have looked out the windows, trying to spot a safe place to jump off. We’re not sure if we’re going to end up in a ravine or a pit of alligators or maybe some boring field of wheat PR firm. In my case, a former newspaper editor of mine I liked showed up, beckoning with a giant, fluffy pillow. I did my research and I am pretty sure that pillow is not a My Pillow. But I did muster a lot of strength to take the leap. It will be a soft landing, so I’m told, though it will be a struggle to get comfortable. Now I’m midair, and that’s altogether exciting and terrifying. I commend those of you staying on this crazy train. I’m not sure what else I can tell you except keep your seatbelt buckled, keep your head down, and kick away whatever crap people throw on the tracks. And keep glancing out the window, because I hope you’ll see me out there, cheering and waving furiously. It’s been a ride, good people. Thank you. Take care of yourselves and each other. ValSubscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

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Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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