Rhonda Worrell honored for fifty years of service to the Donalsonville News

 

A packed house of friends, family members and well wishers were on hand last Thursday to surprise and honor Rhonda Worrell for her fifty plus years of service to the Donalsonville News.

A reception was held at the Donalsonville News office as part of the chamber’s Business After Hours program.

Rhonda was inducted into the Georgia Press Association’s Golden Club – which signifies fifty years of service to the newspaper industry – at the association’s convention this past June. She was presented the Golden Club medallion as part of last Thursday’s reception honoring her service.

Rhonda commented . . .

“I have truly been blessed; I stumbled into what I assumed would be a temporary job that turned into a job I absolutely love. I have had the wonderful opportunity to work for three family-loving, community-minded gentlemen  who loved, and love their job as much as I have and do.”

Donalsonville News Publisher and Editor David Maxwell commented . . .

“Words cannot effectively express the level of importance Rhonda has meant to the Donalsonville News over half a decade. She is my right-hand lady, she keeps the part of the public that I don’t want to see away from me, and she is an absolutely joy to work with. 

“She is so much more than a newspaper employee. She, and her family, are now part of mine, and I am so very proud to be able to call her the most valuable employee of the Donalsonville News, and my very dear friend.”

Former Donalsonville News Publisher Dan Ponder commented . . . 

“Rhonda is one of the nicest, sweetest ladies I have ever worked with.  Conscientious, hard working, deals with pressure, nice to the public.  I could go on and on.  The award is more than just working for 50 years in my mind.  She has been essential to the success of the Donalsonville News for decades.   Well done and well deserved, Rhonda.”

In the beginning . . . 

Back in August of 1972 Donalsonville News Publisher and Editor Waldo “Bo” McLeod hired Rhonda when she was 18 years old. Two months later she would get married.

She knew absolutely noting about working at a newspaper in 1971, but Mr. Bo assured her that her would teach her everything she needed to know. And he did.

At that time the news office did not have a computer. Articles were written on a manual typewriter and then Rhonda would re-type them on a Justowriter, the paper’s automatic type justifying machine.

From typing articles, waxing paper to manually construct page layouts, to folding inserts and inserting them into the printed edition, to becoming a pro at using the addressing gun to label the papers for the mail, to a master using a Mac computer, Rhonda has excelled at every task she has been given. 

She remarked that Mr. Bo called her “Eagle Eye” because she was always the one who could quickly find the one little sliver of paper containing a single word or line of text that had fallen to the floor in the page past-up process. 

The years passed and Rhonda just kept on learning and excelling in every new technical advancement made in the office. The days of producing the paper using the Justowriter were replaced with the more advanced Compugraphic Machine and eventually after many years of Mr. Bo saying he would never do it, Apple computers made their way into the Donalsonville News office.

The years continued to pass and in December of 2011 Mr. Bo sold the paper to Donalsonville businessman Dan Ponder who then hired David Maxwell as the paper’s Managing Editor in June of 2012.

The Ponder and Maxwell era featured a move to brand new office facilities two blocks across town, as well as colorful, energetic and engaging layout designs instituted by Maxwell.

Rhonda continued to learn and excel in everything she was asked to do.

Seminole County and Donalsonville took a beating from Hurricane Michael’s 160 mph winds in 2018. The newspaper’s office was virtually destroyed; however, Rhonda was part of the reason the Donalsonville News never failed in putting out a weekly edition during the recovery period.  

Maxwell became the paper’s, owner, publisher and editor in January of 2024, and Rhonda is still here, continuing to do all of the above and more for the Donalsonville News.

Congratulations Rhonda, on your first 50 years with the Donalsonville News.