Ronnie McLeod never had a byline in the local newspaper. He never wrote or edited the words or snapped a photograph for publication. But like his mother, father and grandfather before him, he was there every day for 40 years for subscribers and readers of The Fayetteville Observer.
Mornings came early.
“I used to get up about 2:30, and later about 1 a.m.,” McLeod, 60, says of his north Fayetteville delivery route that included Country Club Hills, Country Club North, Hillendale, and eventually Tiffany Pines, College Lakes, College Downs, Patriot Park Village and Eureka Springs. “I could do 500 customers in maybe 2:15 minutes and about three hours on a Sunday.”
McLeod delivered the morning newspaper to nearly 650 customers from Feb. 1, 1992, until he retired May 31 of this year.
“I guess it was in my blood,” he says.
His mother, Clara McLeod Allen, delivered the newspaper for 38 years.
“I took over her route,” he says. “I used to deliver with her when I was a kid.”
His father, Ronnie McLeod Jr., delivered the newspaper “30-some years,” he says, and his grandfather, Ronnie McLeod Sr., was a newspaper deliveryman for 54 years.
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Before the sun came up
An independent contractor, Ronnie McLeod was dedicated to his route and dedicated to delivering the newspaper to his customers on time.
“I never wanted my customers to miss their paper,” he says. “I delivered in Hurricane Floyd (1999) and Hurricane Fran (1996) and on freezing streets. I had to make detours during Fran.”
You have to know something about a daily newspaper that rolls off the press down on Whitfield Street. Carriers used to line up by the docks to collect papers for customers on their routes. There were newspapers and the news to deliver, and there was little time to waste. A carrier has to roll the newspaper and bag a newspaper, too.
“I rolled as I went,” McLeod says, “and bagged them.”
Thanksgiving newspapers could be a challenge for any carrier.
“Some days, the paper was so big, with 50 inserts, I would have to take some home and go back and get the rest,” he says.
When it came to Ronnie McLeod’s newspaper route, that first was 30 miles and then 60, he says, his customers came first.
“I had a great rapport with my customers,” he says. “One of my best tipped me $150 each Christmas. I went 13 years after my honeymoon and never did take a day off. In 2005, I started taking a vacation.”
But just a week, mind you.
Ronnie McLeod had newspapers to deliver before the sun came up. And when the late Larry Cheek was a longtime columnist for the newspaper, it was like subscribers couldn’t begin their day without their morning coffee, toast and jam — and Larry Cheek.
“I had mixed emotions,” McLeod says about May 31, when delivering the newspapers on his final run. “I did it for so long.”
You’ll find McLeod working these days as a valet parking attendant at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Ramsey Street. He likes shuttling patients and family members of patients.
“I like meeting people,” McLeod says. “I’m like my dad, who didn’t know any strangers, either. I get the weekends off. If I want to go out of town to the beach with my wife, we can go.”
Epilogue
Ronnie McLeod never had a byline in the local newspaper. He never wrote or edited the words or snapped a photograph for publication. But he, like every newspaper delivery carrier, was as important as any editor or reporter or executive at the state’s oldest newspaper publication.
Ronnie McLeod got the morning newspaper to your home without fail to have with your morning coffee and toast and jam.
“Like I said,” Ronnie McLeod says, “I guess it was in my blood.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
