Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

The Final Word

The end of this chronicle has been reached. It comes on my 80th birthday in the year 2000 which is an appropriate time to wrap it up.

Insufficient attention has been given to some people who accompanied and assisted me through much of this journey. First and foremost is my wife, Betty. It has been said of me that I am a quiet, retiring person. This is supposed to come from my half Scandinavian ancestry. The other half of my ancestry, the Irish, can cause some outbursts. Betty has put up with this dichotomy for 57 years at this point with unfailing tolerance and fortitude. She has given me more consideration than I deserve. That is undoubtedly why we have survived these many years together.

Betty has joined me in providing us with nine wonderful children. At this stage in life it is a joy to sit back and contemplate the passing parade of their experiences. They are now well into adulthood, most of them with families of their own. They are all from one family but all with individual characteristics and achievements. The respect they have shown Betty and me over our years together has made having a large family a pleasure.

Our family came in threes. Martin III, born in 1944; Dan, 1945; and Margaret, 1946; graduated from Appleton, Minn., high school, now demolished. Vincent, 1950; Kevin, 1951; and Sean, 1952; graduated from high schools in the St. Paul area, Vincent in the first graduating class from Archbishop Brady, no longer in existence; Kevin from Murray, now a junior high school; and Sean from Cretin, now merged with Derham Hall. The final three are Brendan, 1955; Maureen, 1956; and Michael, 1961; who graduated from Blue Earth, Minn., high school.

Martin III graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass., spent two years in Turkey working for the National Security Agency (NSA) after which he obtained a degree in space science at Catholic University in Washington, D. C. He held several engineering positions, worked for AT&T and most recently is employed by the Nokia telephone Co.

Dan graduated from the College of St. Thomas, now St. Thomas University. He had one year of law school at the University of Minnesota before he volunteered for the Army. He spent four years in the Army during the Vietnam war, then returned to start law school over again for three years. After a brief stint as an assistant county attorney for Pine and Chisago counties he joined the legal staff of the Minnesota State Senate.

Margaret graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., with a journalism degree. She was also editor of the Marquette Tribune. She went to Honolulu to work for the Associated Press. She obtained two advanced degrees at the University of Hawaii where she also held several administrative positions with the East-West Center.

Vincent enrolled at Marquette University and spent one year there before volunteering for military service. He spent some time in Vietnam as a company clerk in the army. His presence there kept Dan from having to go overseas since the policy was that only one brother had to be there at one time. Vince returned to pursue a journalism degree at the University of Minnesota. He worked with me in Blue Earth for a short time, dabbled in politics but then switched to computers. He has worked with several firms as a computer programmer.

Kevin attended the University of Minnesota where he studied Liberal Arts and quickly gravitated to computers. He has been a longtime employee of the Cigna Insurance Co. where he maintains the internal computer system and is a mentor for new employees.

Sean had a liking for Arizona and attended the University of Arizona for his baccalaureate degree and his law degree. Between those degrees he spent a year at a kibbutz in Israel. He started legal work as a clerk for a judge in Fallon, Nev., then was an assistant attorney general in Nevada working on gambling law. He returned to Arizona to do real estate work for the Del Webb Co., in Phoenix and Sun City West. He then joined a law firm in Las Vegas but most recently became the city attorney for North Las Vegas.

Brendan also had a yen for the west. He graduated from the Jesuit school, the University of San Francisco. He worked for a private savings and loan company and was manager of a branch office before returning to Minnesota. He lives in St. Paul where he works in accounting.

Maureen graduated from the College of St. Catherine. She has worked in photography for catalogs, taking children's photos in stores and in photo processing. She is a Master Gardener and now is working at the Minnetonka school library, utilizing computers in the program.

Mike is a graduate of St. John's University at Collegeville, Minn. He was an outstanding runner both in high school and college. He holds the state high school record for the mile run before the race was changed to 1600 meters. He was captain of the cross country and track tams both in high school and college. He was a distance runner and advanced to national competition. He taught mathematics on year at St. John's Prep, then moved into computers. He worked for various firms, sometimes with Vince and now again is with him as a programmer at Lawson Software in St. Paul.

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