Raymond Johnson -- copy editor
Raymond Johnson, who started out as a Milwaukee journalist, came to work at The Capital Times via Los Angeles 15 years ago but continued to commute every day from Milwaukee.
It was all about the girls.
"Madison's not my kind of town, and I didn't want my daughters to grow up there," he said in an e-mail response to a question. "Smug, phony-liberal, deep-seated prejudice ... obvious to any black person or non-white minority."
The girls -- there are six of them -- were also the reason he left the Los Angeles Times after just five years.
"Schools didn't offer a lot out there because of Proposition 13, a situation so bad that the Milwaukee schools looked good," he said. "We moved back and my daughters excelled." The oldest three graduated with honors from Rufus King International Baccalaureate High School. The younger three, Rachel, Gabriella and Natalie, are attending King now or will be headed there.
"All my daughters are smart and creative," he says with pride. "Amanda, Hilary and Claire are Evjue Scholars (a full four-year scholarship at a UW System campus offered by The Capital Times to qualified children of employees), but Amanda decided to go to Stanford and Hilary decided to go to the University of Chicago. Claire is a sophomore at UW-Madison."
Raymond -- is it obvious yet? -- is a stickler. (You want that in a copy editor.) And he can be prickly. But he's devoted to education. He points to his time running a small Milwaukee weekly in the '70s as a high point in his career:
"My staff consisted mainly of housewives and college students, all inexperienced. I was their first real teacher in newspapering -- professors don't count -- and went over their stories with them line by line. I showed them what I wanted and what was good, bad or trite. Several had ability. We scooped the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel several times. . . .
"It was fun. Journalism is a lot different now."
From Ron McCrea, senior news editor
- Sledding season begins, but still too early for skating, skiing
- Frosty fender benders slow by late afternoon Wednesday
- Stolen laptop's theft recovery software aids police recovery
- University of Wisconsin researchers think milk does a kidney transplant good
- MATC hosting IT education open house
- House, condo sales still down
