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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
STILLWATER, Okla. — In August 1990, the first President Bush occupied the White House, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and a gallon of gasoline cost $1.19.
I was a 22-year-old aspiring journalist, a new graduate of Oklahoma Christian University and newly married to my beautiful bride, Tamie.
After a few months of searching for a job, I finally found an editor, the late Lawrence Gibbs, willing to take a chance on me.
For my interview, I drove my light blue 1978 Volkswagen Beetle — with a stick shift — 60 miles up U.S. Highway 177 to the Stillwater News Press office.
Gibbs talked to me a bit about the small daily newspaper, which has roots dating back to 1892 in the home city of Oklahoma State University. Then he asked me to take a test of sorts.
“Write your own obituary,” he said, “as if you had died in a car crash on the way here.”
Well, OK.
I guess I passed because Gibbs hired me — at $225 a week. That amounted to $6 an hour. I officially worked 7.5 hours a day, clocking out for 30 minutes at lunchtime.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
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