They don't make newspapermen (or women) like Bill Casteel anymore.
The longtime Chattanooga Times journalist, editor and columnist died Monday, and with him goes the last of an era - a time when newspaper folks started as carriers and followed their dreams and scribbles onto sports pages and news columns until their blood was steeped in ink.
Casteel stayed with it from the time he became a Times carrier when he was an Athens, Tenn., elementary school lad. He had a sportswriting stint at the Daily Post Athenian and a stringer position for the Times. During a two-year tour of duty in the Navy in the 1950s, he was editor of the base newspaper. Back home, he became editor-in-chief of the Post Athenian and interim city editor of the Times from 1980 to 1982. Eventually he became the news voice Chattanooga knew best: the ever-irreverent and always funny king of Chattanooga political and human interest satire in his column, "Byline," where no cow was too sacred. He retired in 1998.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, who began his career at the Times, called Casteel "our Will Rogers" whose common sense and uncommon wisdom helped Chattanooga "understand itself for decades."
But along with work at the word mine, there was fun. Long-time Times staffers such as Carolyn Mitchell recall that Casteel wrote, cast and directed the annual Times Christmas party film, a send-up of the local scene, especially the Times' arch rival, the News-Free Press. Under Casteel's direction, Times publisher Ruth Holmberg offered memorable performances, including her portrayal of Morganna, the Kissing Bandit, a minor celebrity from whom Casteel once stole a kiss.
Casteel also was a founding member of The Way Down the Road, Outta Sight and Long Range Planning Commission. The group's members found their purpose, beyond revelry, in organizing the Kudzu Ball, Mitchell recalls. The spoof of the Cotton Ball raised $50,000 for the Boehm Birth Defects Center during its seven-year run.
Bill Casteel loved Chattanooga, and he loved the newspaper business.
Charles Slack, a biographer who got his start at the Times, called Casteel "the conscience" of the city.
"He loved Chattanooga enough to render it honestly, whatever the consequences," Slack said.
We honor him. And we will miss him.