Randy Peterson, the last of the Big Peach legends, is retiring after 52 years
In an age of vicious corporate media layoffs, Peterson might be the last 50-year newspaper employee anywhere
In days of yore, when a rolled-up copy of the Sunday Des Moines Register seemed as thick as a the trunk of a California Redwood, the sports section was printed on peach newsprint so fans could fetch it faster from the mass of sections.
They called it the Big Peach and in it were stories by perhaps the best collection of sports writers ever assembled in a city without a major pro sports team.
Columnists Marc Hansen and Maury White, Rick Brown and Randy Peterson on the Hawkeyes and Cyclones. John Naughton on prep sports. Dan McCool on wrestling. Tom Witosky on investigations. Dave Stockdale, Susan Harman, Jane Burns, and Jeff Olson on everything else.
The Register ended the Big Peach in 1999 partially because the peach newsprint was expensive and couldn’t be recycled and partially the tinted paper didn’t allow for full-color photographs on the stuff.
All the legends of my Big Peach youth are gone now. Some retired. Some have died. Others moved on to other destinations or new careers.
Only Randy Peterson remains and he’s retiring this month after 52 years at the newspaper. That’s a hell of a run, especially in today’s vicious corporate media environment. Pete is surely the last 50-year employee of the Register and maybe the last 50-year employee of any American newspaper.
I knew Pete before I ever met him. I read his bylines along with the others in the Sunday Register.
His stories helped plant the seed in my fragile little mind that one day, I could grow up and get paid to watch sports for a living.
I never did, but I still worked in journalism for 27 years. I don’t hold that against Pete. We all make bad decisions now and then.
My first paid assignment for the Register came in 1993 as a senior at East High School. I worked part-time in the sports department covering prep sports starting in 1994.
I met Pete in person on a summer day in May of 1994. I fooled the gentleman scholar Dave Witke, then the Register’s sports editor, to let me cover high school sports part-time at $25 an assignment.
I felt like a rookie being called up to play for the 1961 Yankees.
On my first day, the computer guru gave me a thick book she called “a self-directed training manual” and told me to go sit in the sports department.
I walked up to a man whom I later learned had the meanest temperament of any human being I’d ever met outside of a murderer I once interviewed.
“Excuse me, sir,” I asked. “Where can I sit?”
The man turned around and looked at me with a withering stare that made me want to turn to dust and blow away. He turned to his computer, and I felt small and helpless.
Over my shoulder, I heard a voice.
“Hey kid,” the voice said.
I turned and it was Pete. He was on the phone, but he had witnessed the exchange between me and the grumpy copy editor.
“He’s an asshole,” Pete said. “Sit wherever you want.”
And that was the best welcome I could ever have had to the Register and journalism.
Pete was the legend of legends in my mind. He graduated from East High School and Drake University. I did, too. He was the hometown kid who made it in the big leagues.
Pete was a great colleague. He never treated a young reporter like a dummy. He talked to you like you’d been in the bullpen for 20 years. He gave advice, but he never talked down to you.
Pete was old school. He believed in objectivity and not rooting for the home teams even when the corporate greed-heads ordered us to do so in the 2010s.
Pete worked his beat hard. He never feared getting crossways with a coach, player, or university. He sought the truth. He published it. No spin. No nonsense.
Pete was old school, yet he adapted to the changing media landscape and technology disruptions better than any reporter I knew. He mastered social media. He recorded and edited videos. Whatever he needed to do to cover the story, he did, and he did it well.
The last desk I ever had in the Register newsroom was adjacent to Pete’s. He wasn’t there often. He was in Ames chasing some story about the Cyclones or on the road to some garden spot in the Big 12, like Stillwater, Oklahoma.
But when he was there, we’d chat a bit like old friends and colleagues do. Pete always knew more than me about everything in sports, politics, business, and every other topic. He was and remains an excellent talker and an even better listener. I hope we can grab a beer when he finally closes his notebook.
Pete’s spot has been in the press box for over half a century. Now he can fold up his notebook and close the laptop. He can spend time with his granddaughters and enjoy a beer or two at Lake Okoboji. He’s talked about going to sporting events outside the press box.
And, of course, Randy Peterson, the last of the Big Peach legends, can sit wherever he wants.
Daniel P. Finney, a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, wrote for newspapers for 27 years before being laid off in 2020. He teaches middle school English now.
Thanks for this wonderful Randy Peterson tribute, Dan!
So many memories wrapped up in this article. Thanks