Bob Welch’s expert advice on newspaper column writing

When I considered writing a column for The Herald, I turned to Bob Welch for advice.

You may recognize him as a former Register-Guard columnist who now writes some of my all-time favorite books about people, especially those who served in the armed services.

In 1975 I met Bob, who was a student in a law-of-the-press class that I taught at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. He scored a top grade, but much to his chagrin I reminded him during an office conference that he elected to be graded on a pass/no pass basis.

He paid his dues working for four newspapers. Then for 14 years between 1999-2013 he wrote nearly 2,000 columns — three a week — for The Register-Guard.

“Column writing was a ride like no other,” Bob wrote in response to my inquiry. “Someone described kicking three columns out a week like running just ahead of a farmer’s combine out in a field: exhilarating . . . until you trip just once.

“It’s like an individual sport. You almost feel like an independent contractor. You pretty much succeed or fail all on your own, dependent on your own ideas, your own imagination, your own reporting and writing.”

The best part of column writing, Bob wrote, is instant gratification. “Three times a week, you could see exactly what you had done. Getting to know such an array of people, places, experiences and ideas that you never would otherwise. And, frankly, a chance to vent!rrrr” (out of the office.)

The worst part, according to Bob: “As soon as you get done with one column, it was on to the next.”

So, why write a column?

“I either wanted to make you laugh or to evoke some sort of emotion in you, the reader,” Bob wrote. “I tried to keep my columns personal, even though that feels like ‘ego’ and ‘grabbing the spotlight.’ I learned that the more vulnerable you were as a columnist, the more the readers responded.”

Meanwhile, Bob was writing and publishing books, including one of my all-time favorites, “American Nightingale,” which was published in 2004.

Since leaving The Register-Guard, Bob has helped more than a dozen people write or complete books, including two of his own recent books: “The Wizard of Foz: Dick Fosbury’s One-Man High-Jump Revolution,” winner of the Track & Field Writers of America’s 2019 Book of the Year, and his latest, “Saving My Enemy: How Two WWII Soldiers Fought Against Each Other and Later Formed a Friendship That Saved Their Lives.”

I’ll follow Bob’s advice, but don’t expect me to turn out three columns a week. Sharing a story-a-week about the lower section of Highway 58 should prevent a 92-year-old, over-the-hill, has-been journalist from nodding into his morning cup of coffee.

Longtime Oregon journalist Dean Rea, widely known for his years as a University of Oregon journalism educator and editor at The Register-Guard in Eugene,  serves as a founding board member, correspondent and columnist for The Herald.