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Kim Sunderlage -- city desk assistant

The Capital Times  —  4/25/2008 12:46 pm

Kim Sunderlage was a print brat who was born to the newspaper business.

When I joined the city desk in 1995, Kim was the clerk. I soon recognized her as indispensable. She showed up at 4 or 4:30 every morning to set up the paper, type the births and deaths, take calls, and transcribe the Sound Off calls. She scoured the classified ads and corrected errors, such as the one describing an apartment as featuring "Wayne's Coating."

During our tight window of morning production, Kim was a troubleshooter and a firewall. She knew the building and who to call to stop a page or find a missing ad. She knew how to field crank calls and protect editors working on deadline. But she was also the person you could trust to take notes from someone in trouble who called the newspaper because he or she had nowhere else to turn.

Kim had a nose for news. She remembered names and addresses from events years back and could spot a story buried in a legal notice. If there was a breaking crime story and she heard an address on the police scanner, she would go to the reverse directory and come back immediately with names and phone numbers of residents living next door and across the street to feed to reporters. She did this without being asked; she was in the game.

A few years ago Kim was thrown off stride by a surgery that was complicated by infections, which forced her to reduce her hours. But she battled back to complete her 30th year with the company, still feisty and full of bad jokes, a grandmother with attitude. Our Girl Friday.

From Ron McCrea, senior news editor

The Capital Times  —  4/25/2008 12:46 pm