Rick Tapscott
Few people had more impact on my career than Rick Tapscott, who died Sunday.
Rick hired me twice and by leaving the first time and agreeing to extra duties the second time, he really gave me three or four great opportunities. He lured me away from the Des Moines Register in 1985 with an offer to be assistant national/mid-America editor for the Kansas City Times. Then he left to join the Washington Post, giving me the opportunity to run a newsroom department for the first time in my career. Thirteen years later, he brought me back to the Register as religion editor (really a reporting role) and writing coach.
We became good friends, visiting in his homes Kansas City, Washington and Des Moines and our home in the Kansas City suburbs, socializing as couples and with our kids, who were about the same age. We shared with a couple other colleagues in season tickets to the Royals, going to the games together several times.
Barb Musfeldt, who later would become Rick’s wife, had been a colleague in my first hitch at the Register, an intern while she was working on her master’s degree at Iowa State University. Barb became a reporter at the Kansas City Star, which shared a newsroom and a rivalry with the Times.
But when news moved in 1985 that Gannett was buying the Register from the Cowles family, Rick overlooked the rivalry to ask Barb’s advice about who might be a good candidate to poach for an editing vacancy on his desk. Barb dropped my name, and I went down to Kansas City for an interview and then for a job.
Rick and I hit it off quickly, both personally and professionally. I was one of the first to know that his relationship with Barb had advanced from recruiting consultant to romance.
Rick wasn’t one of those editors who taught me a lot, not because he didn’t have a lot to teach, but because I was a veteran editor when he hired me as an editor and a veteran reporter when he hired me as a reporter. But he was an excellent model of level-headed leadership, brainstorming on stories and choosing your fights wisely (lessons I’d already learned but needed to relearn a few times).
Rick conferred with me when he was interviewing to become metro editor of the Register in 1998 after more than a decade at the Post. I encouraged him to take the job and was excited to have him back in the Midwest (I was at the Omaha World-Herald at the time).
Not long after he took the job, he was back on the phone, asking if I wanted to cover religion for the Register, replacing Bill Simbro, who had retired. I wasn’t that interested in covering religion, but I was very interested in working for Rick again (and in returning to the Register).
I had just started offering my services to newsrooms and journalism organizations as a visiting writing coach. I had asked my editors at the World-Herald if I could add writing coach duties there, but they had said no. I also had been rebuffed in an effort to become a columnist at the World-Herald. Rick agreed to my requests to be part-time writing coach at the Register and to write a weekly column on religion in addition to my religion duties. That accelerated the newsroom-training phase of my career.
When I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1999, Rick was wonderfully supportive to Mimi as well as to me as we dealt with that diagnosis and as I recovered from surgery. And he was understanding when I decided to stop my weekly commute to Des Moines and return full-time to Omaha, where my family had stayed.
We didn’t see much of each other after that, though we stayed in touch by occasional email. After moves to the East Coast, we were both back in Iowa in 2008, him as a journalism professor at Drake University, me as editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. He invited me to speak to a class once and we met in Des Moines at least a couple times for dinner and drinks.
I wish we’d been in touch more often, but it had been a few years since we’d seen each other. He couldn’t make it when I gathered with a few other friends when I was back in Des Moines this summer. A few weeks ago, I learned from a former Register colleague that he had been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Now I learned that he died this morning.
He was a great journalist and a great friend. I will always be indebted.
@stevebuttry WHAT???? Tapscott died? Oh no…
— Karen Mitchell (@uberscholar) December 1, 2013
@stevebuttry Holy crap. I just saw him in March, looked great. So sad. Thanks for your column on him.
— Karen Mitchell (@uberscholar) December 1, 2013
@stevebuttry Rick was a wonderful guy and a great journalist. So sad. I had no idea he was ill.
— Lisa Fung (@lfung) December 1, 2013
@stevebuttry Thanks for your thoughts on @RichardTapscott‘s death. He was definitely one of my biggest mentors. A major loss for @DrakeJMC.
— Jeff Glaze (@jeffglaze) December 1, 2013
[Honorable/gracious/skilled competitor while at the Fayetteville (NC) Times] R.I.P., Rick Tapscott http://t.co/ycO27hoKSM by @stevebuttry
— George Frink (@gwfrink3) December 2, 2013
I remember him young, as I was when we met @dangillmor @stevebuttry
— George Frink (@gwfrink3) December 2, 2013
@stevebuttry @RichardTapscott was one of a kind. Funny as hell and a great newsman. He will be missed.
— Marisol Bello (@Marisol_Bello) December 2, 2013
R.I.P., Rick Tapscott http://t.co/MDXdVt3Akl by @stevebuttry
— Dan Gillmor (@dangillmor) December 2, 2013
For auld lang syne, Rick: MT @Marisol_Bello: @stevebuttry @RichardTapscott was one of a kind. Funny as hell and a great newsman
— Greg Burton (@gburton) December 2, 2013
Filed under: Journalist profiles Tagged: Des Moines Register, Drake University, Kansas City Times, Rick Tapscott, Washington Post
