My ‘office sister’

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

There is a page in my desk calendar that I’ve been dreading since there was still snow on the ground. Sometime back in the late-winter or early-spring, I wrote “Last LKC Deadline” on July 19, “Last LKC Edition” on July 20 and “Baby Kiebert-Carey” on July 26. I then buried that page and went about my business, still knowing it lurked beneath my keyboard.

That page has finally flipped to the top. 

Sandpoint Reader News Editor Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey’s baby boy Liam came into this world on July 18, which made her last deadline and edition a week earlier than anticipated. Though immeasurably happy for Lyndsie and her husband, Alex, I will also be happy when this calendar page passes into memory.

To say that our three-legged stool at the Reader is tottering a little at this point would be an understatement. For those who pay close attention the paper or are directly familiar with how we operate in the newsroom, it is well known that Lyndsie has been our MVP for years — I once referred to her in a conversation with another editor in southern Idaho as our “not-so-secret weapon,” and meant it with all the conviction in my withered journalist’s heart.

Since I started in this business in 1999, I’ve been fortunate to work with some stellar reporters and editors. I also count among them some excellent mentors and, when I moved into the editor-in-chief position at Boise Weekly in 2013, got to become a mentor myself. The best part of my job at BW was in fact training up young reporters, and there is a deep bond of connection that forms between a reporter and their editor, which even a decade or more doesn’t diminish.

When I left BW in 2017 to pursue graduate school, I didn’t necessarily intend on returning to the newspaper world and therefore didn’t think I’d have another chance to work with any more young journalists. Of course I did in 2019, coming home to the Reader, where I met Lyndsie.

I don’t think I can rightfully call myself Lyndsie’s mentor, nor can I really call her a “young” reporter. For one thing, Lyndsie didn’t need a mentor when I showed up in the newsroom. She was already a finer reporter and more conscientious editor than any I’ve ever worked with. And, though she’s still in her mid-20s, Lyndsie is one of the oldest souls I’ve encountered — certainly more mature, balanced, self-possessed and generally capable than I have been able to achieve at just shy of 43 years old.

So with Lyndsie I defer to “colleague” and, most important, “friend” when I think of our relationship. It’s been more than that even. It’s something approaching “office sister.” With her I’ve enjoyed seamless collaboration on hundreds of stories big and small. We’ve been a sounding board for one another, checking biases, painstakingly outlining the structure and flow of coverage, divvying our resources and constantly commiserating.

We’ve had long, meandering conversations about everything from the events of our lives to our experiences growing up in different times and parts of the county. We’ve talked about school, family and writing and the various characters we’ve known, and constructed a constellation of inside jokes and references along the way. As a trio, Publisher Ben Olson, Lyndsie and I have frequently cracked each other up so hard in the newsroom that the people in our surrounding offices in the Farmin Building must have wondered whether we’d lost our minds.

It is safe to say that in my more than 20 years in newspapers, I’ve never had a more steadfast, loyal, giving and just plain good co-worker. I don’t know if she knows how rare that is, but I certainly do and have appreciated it in her from Day 1, when over the course of the first few hours I spent with her in the office I knew this was no ordinary “young journalist” — or human being.

I applaud her for her excellence on every front — I will miss everything about having her as a critical member of our clubhouse — and though the circumstances surrounding her departure from the paper are the most joyous they could be, I have to stress that members of the community have benefited as much from her as I have. Her coverage of everything from county government to arts and entertainment to her always-deeply affecting essays has been of enormous benefit to this place, which she loves so much and which loves her back.

Congrats, LKC, and thanks for being my office sister.

Zach Hagadone is editor-in-chief of the Sandpoint Reader.