The 42-year editor in chief of this magazine says goodbye.
Back at Kenwood High in Baltimore, they let me do two things on the school newspaper: write a class-clown column and be the sports editor. Hog heaven.
Circumstances too arcane to mention took me in another vocational direction after college, as I worked in social services for 20 years.
Toward the end of the 1970s, based on childhood summers spent in Radford with grandparents and the occasional trip up to “the big city,” I chose Roanoke as a new place to live. I knew no one and had no job.
But I soon learned of Roanoke’s city magazine, which I admired, but which lacked any wise-guy stuff. So in 1981, I sent some supremely sophomoric humor bits to editor Brenda McDaniel.
And she fell for it! Writing a fake Q&A under the so-clever name of the Star City Seer, my first words in The Roanoker were these:
Q. City Council often seems so at odds with itself. My mother says they should all get together at a picnic or a softball game or something to iron things out. Does council presently do any recreating as a group?
A. No, but Elizabeth Bowles.
True knee-slapper, right? Elizabeth was, you know, a member of city council.
Yeah, I had to explain that kind of high humor in high school too.
Three years and 30 issues of such nonsense later, Brenda decided to leave the editor job and suggested I apply.
I was flattered as deeply as I have ever been. And so, beginning with the January, 1984 issue, when company founder and publisher Richard Wells hired me, and extending until the full handoff to American city-magazine-editor-supreme Liz Long in 2018, I got to stay with the class clown stuff (the Star City Seer retired at some point, but was reincarnated as Gossipman), and also become the editor of a real magazine! All while getting to do parodies, the Dubious Achievement Awards and other foolery. Hog heaven redux!
Over those 34 years of day-to-day writing and editing, I got to talk to and write about the very best and brightest of Roanoke. People like revolutionary city manager Bern Ewert. Heroic and longest-serving mayor Noel C. Taylor. Big-time banker, civic leader and hometown favorite son Warner Dalhouse. And scores more.
I got to write a sneak preview of Valley View Mall a year before it came to be. About Explore Park when it was as controversial as anything around here. About consolidation of valley governments just before that vote failed.
I got to work with area writers including the amazing Beth Macy, as well as Roland Lazenby, CeCe Bell, Donald McCaig, Sharyn McCrumb and Nelson Harris. And scores more.
And beyond all that, I got to be the founding editor of The Roanoker’s sister magazine, Blue Ridge Country, in 1988, and continued in that role through its January/February 2026 issue.
In both of those ventures and many other publications, I got to work under Richard Wells, whose dedication to good writing and business acumen made him both the perfect mentor and the best boss anyone could ever have.
Much as I remember my first words in the magazine, I remember too his first and lasting lesson to me: One day early on, he came over to my desk with a printout in hand.
“Winston-Salem, Kurt,” he said and paused. “Is there a hyphen in it?”
I didn’t know. And as I came to learn that there is, I was given this direct admonition:
“You’re in charge of every detail now, Kurt. And if you put Winston-Salem out there without the hyphen, you will lose credibility with people who know better. And if they don’t trust that, they have no reason to trust anything else in the magazine. And so why would they pay for it?”
Case closed. Thank you, Richard, for every glorious moment of the 42 years since.
As you may have heard, Richard recently sold his company, concluding a 55-year career of publishing success, civic involvement and the employment of more than 500 Roanokers. The new owner is Randy Thompson, head of VistaMedia of Virginia Beach, a company similar to the former Leisure in being a publisher of magazines, lifestyle guides and annuals. Its deep reach into digital and sales realms will bring new life to The Roanoker.
I will miss the people in this building, the direct ties to Roanoke and the best job anyone ever had. Most fun of which, let it now be told, was getting to be the class clown.
The story above is from our January/February 2026 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
