SUE LEGGETT, AN integral part of the Addison Independent’s team for four decades, receives the New England Newspaper & Press Association’s coveted Cornerstone Award from NENPA President Aaron Julien at the regional organization’s conference in Rhode
Island late last week.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Susan Leggett, the Addison County Independent’s long-time production manager, received the New England Newspaper & Press Association’s first-ever Cornerstone Award at its annual fall meeting this past Friday. The award was established to recognize a New England news organization employee who is indispensable to the operation and raises the question: “Where would we be without them?”

Among the entries from newspapers from throughout the six states were a circulation and logistics director charged with distributing 35,000 copies of a Vermont weekly; a Massachusetts weekly’s copy editor and board member emerita who, at 96, still takes part in the paper’s editorial content meetings; and a digital director who is critical to a Connecticut online publication’s investigative work.

Leggett earned the honor for her 46 years as production manager — a position that has seen huge disruption and change over her career. Starting as a 19-year-old, fresh out of high school and a local vocational program, she joined the Addison Independent and immediately gathered pre-press and press operating skills. Four years into the job, at age 23, she became production manager, leading a full-time crew of 5-7, plus a half-dozen more on days the paper was being printed in-house and delivered.

Back then, darkrooms were used to develop negatives that were burned onto plates for the printing press. For her first several years, Leggett’s department produced a weekly, four-section paper of 32 pages on a small in-house press, plus other commercial work within the printing department. The presses were sold in 1985, but the newspaper grew and four years later it jumped to a twice weekly for the next 30 years.

The process to get the paper out became even faster. In the 1970s, the traditional page makeup used X-Acto knives to trim photographic paper (called “cold type” by some) that was waxed and manually pasted on layout pages, then “photographed” and developed into page-size negatives that were sent to the printer. That laborious process would eventually be phased out by computer pagination and digital production. The newspaper grew, added magazines and even six phone books covering half the state.

“Sue took all those changes in stride and rarely blinked,” said publisher Angelo Lynn. “She would just learn what she had to know about the new process, teach herself at night and on the weekends, and adapted on the fly.”

Leggett, now 65, is still production manager with the newspaper and her talents have grown to include page and ad design and graphics. Among other things, she’s part of the company’s executive committee when discussing long- and short-term objectives. And she provides eyes and ears in the community for her paper.

“She’s a great connection to the community and a great sounding board,” news editor John McCright said. “She knows more locals and who’s who in town than reporters who have been here 30-plus years. She’s indispensable, not only as a news resource and someone we check in with about how the community might be feeling about an issue, but as the person on staff who gets the paper done and gets it to the printers.”

In remarks upon getting the award, Leggett said her friends sometimes would ask if she ever got bored doing the same job for some many years, but she would always respond the same way.

“It never got boring because the technology and the process was always changing; and every week we produced another product (or two) and we could always measure how much we were improving or how much more we had to do,” Leggett said.

One of the paper’s co-publishers, Elsie Lynn Parini, described Leggett “as this amazing employee who is just so dedicated and loyal to the paper. She’s the person you can depend on every day to get the work done. And she’s so pleasant, just willing to roll with the punches, learn and make the needed changes and then put her head down and go to work…the epitome of a team player.”

“This is a great honor for Sue,” Lynn said. “We couldn’t be prouder of her and more grateful for all the terrific work she’s done for the Addy Indy. She is one of our unsung heroes and we’re glad she is getting the recognition she so richly deserves.”