Tom Paine is back on campus in Vermont this fall, a few months after he and his wife, Shirley Reid, sold the St. John Sun Times they owned for four years.
Returning to a post teaching at Middlebury College, he told the campus newspaper his time on island reaffirmed his faith in the power of teaching, something he and Reid did as they also worked to fill their 40-page newspaper with positive articles from locals.
By inviting one and all to contribute to the paper, Paine said, "What I was doing was talking about how to use writing to make a difference. It got a little ridiculous. They used to say that I walked around with a big sign painted on me (saying), ‘Do you want to write about it?’"
He also noticed St. John changing while he was there. "It’s under
assault by big money," he remembered. "It was no longer the artistic
Mecca which Paine and his wife had once thrived in," the campus paper
reported.
When Paine realized the rewards of being a businessman were not
greater than the memories of his satisfaction in teaching, and his
young daughter found snorkeling over coral reefs wasn’t as much fun as
being back in Vermont, they sold the paper and returned to college.
Read The Middlebury Campus newspaper article
I would greatly enjoy a copy of the Oct. 1 “Life After Publishing…” article. However, I have recently been having problems with Yahoo! which prevent me from downloading photos or items from my home page. I have tried to send my News of St. John bloc to others to have sent back to me, to no avail. Could you please e-mail me directly? I would greatly appreciate the effort. Thank you.
Yeah, but, what will become of Bob Tis????