Tim St. Clair would have hated this edition of the West Seattle Herald. The only place Tim thought his name should be in the newspaper was in a byline. He would have complained that too much was given to one side and there was no "other side" provided to readers.

No Tim, there is no "other" side because we can find no one in this community, nor in Utah from which you sprang, nor from anywhere Tim St. Clair ever was who can provide a negative to your story.

When I was under consideration to take the job of editor, a position that Tim had rejected several times because he just wanted to stay being a reporter here in West Seattle and North Highline, Tim had a question that made me think.

Because I had been a supervising editor for many years, in many places, and had been a reporter on many so-called "big" stories, he worried I would be bored in little old West Seattle. I worried about that for a while, then decided this was a wonderful place to live and work. He and I laughed many times at his concern then because it turns out this is a "happening place."

Just a few weeks ago Tim, who had lost a lot of weight and had been though physical hell, said he was worried that we had not given enough attention to candidates running for office. He always demanded that we interview all candidates, even the most unusual or the little known. Tim could find logical reasons to take every candidate seriously enough to listen to them and consider the merits of their arguments and proposals.

He was visibly happy when, after a few weeks here trying to decide which way I would take this newspaper, I decided it would be toward hard news.

"People have no other way to find out what is going on in their community except for us," he said once. It mattered little that our tiny staff could not do all things for all of our readers. "We need to keep looking, to remember they are depending on us."

It is bloody hard to walk into the West Seattle Herald office now and not find him sitting across from my desk, on the phone asking someone how, when, what, where and why - always polite and caring, but never willing to allow a source to slide by without answering all of the necessary questions.

Tim St. Clair cannot be replaced. There is no one who can do the job he did so willingly for so long. Letter writers in this issue say he was truly happy here doing his job, and you know? He was.

Quite frankly, Tim was the best reporter I ever worked with, but more, he was the best human being I have ever known.

Miss him? More than anyone will ever know. Tim will always live here and can never be forgotten.

- Jack Mayne