We’ll miss you, Mac!

Last week, former Dublin Citizen publisher Mac McKinnon held a yard sale and was rolling out of town a few days later for his new home in San Angelo.

Although we were well aware of the move, it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around a Dublin community without him.

I had seen Mac around town many times during my college years but I first formally met him when I applied for a job at the Citizen in 2008. My experience in retail had me trained to expect a certain order of events: you have an interview and present your resume as you speak with the potential employer, they will take a day or two to call if you get the job and you might start the next week.

Expecting this, I had an early afternoon meeting with Mac. We talked for about 30 minutes and he introduced me to everybody. He then presented a chair and gave me an assignment and I was writing my first event story within the hour.

As I was typing, I was asked to bring my social security card and fill out an employment form.

I don’t remember him ever actually telling me I had the job, but I guess it’s too late for it to be taken back now.

I quickly learned how much Mac does in any job and the community. When he slammed the door open, I’d hear his trademark whistle (the “A-Team” theme seemed to be a favorite for him) before he made his way to each and every desk with notes and directives related to either the paper or several community organizations.

The instructions would come fast and furious and if you took a second to process something before asking a question, he was already past your desk and on to the next thing. The best comparison I can come up with is a friendly tornado. Eventually, I learned to immediately grab a pen and paper because it gave me a few extra seconds as I wrote down what he said. (I think having to wait on my writing probably made him anxious though.)

Although Mac had moved away from his native Roch community for many years, he soaked up as much information as he could about the local community when he took over the Citizen in 2002. As such, he joined local mainstays like Mary Yantis, Karen Wright, Pat Leatherwood, James Smith and Gus Martin for being able to provide local information at the drop of a hat.

I had already held a belief in putting the community first as I became a reporter, but seeing the tenacity with which he covered the community and entrenched himself within it cemented these values as a reporter and later, as an editor myself.

Mac has an overwhelming positivity and confidence that make it hard to say no when he comes to you. (Just ask anybody he used to approach for advertising and donations for American Legion, the library board or Lions Club!)

His passion is also world travel which he and Tresa seem to be enjoying since finding each other. I wish them both the best in their adventures but hope the journeys find them coming through Dublin every so often.

Thanks Mac for sort of hiring me all those years ago and providing a worthy legacy to follow. Although you may no longer live here, you will always be part of the community as I am sure it’s a part of you.