I met Charlie Meredith at a party in the early 1980s, not too long after I moved to Pennsylvania.

When I learned he was the publisher of the Quakertown Free Press, I asked him (probably after a couple of drinks), “Are you hiring?” (I had worked for a daily newspaper in Massachusetts before we moved. Charlie, not surprisingly, since he had served as director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, knew the publisher of that newspaper).

Nothing came of the conversation immediately, and I didn’t think much more about it, but a few months later I got a call from the then-editor of the East Penn Press (then called The Free Press, East Penn edition), asking me if I would like to cover Emmaus Borough Council meetings. One thing led to another and a couple of years later I became editor of the Emmaus paper.

But this isn’t about me; it’s about Charlie, and his passion for local news.

Once I became editor, he pretty much turned me loose, but every once in a while made a valuable suggestion, and also listened to my suggestions. He once came up with an idea that I think was related to the layout of the paper, but I said the money might be better spent hiring a sports editor, and he immediately agreed, aware of how important local sports coverage is to readers of local newspapers.

He and his wife Betsy, who died in September, were both great storytellers, and led such interesting lives that those stories were always fascinating. He had a great sense of humor. Typical was when, in one of his columns, he talked about voting, and said he would have to vote to offset the editor’s vote (he wasn’t talking about me, although he and I weren’t always on the same page politically, but about his daughter, who was then editor of the Quakertown paper).

His accomplishments in his beloved borough of Quakertown have been extensively documented elsewhere, but his awareness of the significance of local news carried over to what he wanted for the East Penn Press, and I hope continues to inform our mission today. His extensive involvement in borough affairs set a great example for the role editors of local newspapers can play in their communities.

Julia F. Swan

former East Penn Press editor