AN EDITOR OF LIFE

I hope arts lovers will permit me a personal indulgence here in remembering editor, columnist, teacher and friend of the arts Peggy Voight, who died Jan. 8 at her home in East Boothbay, Maine at age 82.

Peggy, who edited Gannett’s highly successful weekly Bronxville Review Press-Reporter from 1978 to 1990, was one of the best editors I ever worked for, I think in part because she also taught journalism, at Pace University. I don’t ever remember her raising her voice or uttering a cross word in all the years I knew her. She was always supportive of whatever you wrote, seeking only to show it in the best possible light. The results were more than 100 journalism awards from state and national journalism groups and a close-knit staff that would’ve run through brick walls for her and that still keeps in touch today, even though many of her reporters went on to far-flung careers. (Indeed, the gifts she prized most from her former students/employees were not any baubles but clips of their latest work.)

A hard-news woman down to her bones, Peggy nevertheless always found a place for the arts in her pages, partly because she knew a well-rounded reader was the foundation of good journalism and good citizenry but also because she knew the arts were my journalistic passion. I can honestly say that I never would’ve become a reporter without her.

What really made her special – and what made her so good at her job, ironically – is that she was never just about her work. In many ways, Peggy was a lot like Fezziwig in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” She worked hard, but she played hard, too. I remember the Friday lunches at the Elks Club in White Plains and the parties at her Hartsdale home. Once we even drove up to Connecticut for a long lunch that turned into a foray to Sherwood Island – in March. I can still see us posing for a photograph on the beach, laughing and freezing as we looked out to sea.

I only wish Peggy knew how much she meant to each of us. I like to think she’s up there in heaven right now reading this with a smile – and a sharp pencil.