On Saturday, July 7, we were saddened to learn of the death of Randy Wilson, the longtime editor of the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff. For more than two decades, Randy led the newspaper, reporting on news in Flagstaff and Northern Arizona.
Randy mentored nearly a dozen former Sedona Red Rock News reporters, photojournalists and editors who either worked for the Arizona Daily Sun or interned there while attending Northern Arizona University. Our readers are indebted to his wisdom and expertise imparted to our staff.
I first met Randy in 2006 when reporter Chelsea DeWeese, photojournalist Mal Cooper and I headed to Flagstaff to report on a wildfire threatening the western side of the city. The blaze was burning close to a trailer park on the edge of town and firefighting aircraft were just overhead, dropping water on the fire only a few hundred feet from where we and Daily Sun staff watched with law enforcement while fire crews worked the line.
After interviewing crews and residents and shooting some great photos, we headed back to the Daily Sun newsroom, where Randy let us write our stories while providing pizza to all the journalists.
I ran into Randy often at the Arizona Newspapers Association Convention. His humor was subtle and soft-spoken, and he always asked poignant questions of the speakers and event moderators.
At last year’s convention, Randy and I sat on a panel titled “Operating a strong newsroom on a limited budget,” sharing our tips for how to run a strong and dynamic newsroom with limited staff in a smaller community while still producing top-notch content and news reporting.
Afterward, Randy proposed we and other newspaper editors who share the same vast congressional and legislative districts share our news stories about candidate forums to inform our respective readerships about what our candidates were saying to their constituents. For Randy, providing the news was always more important than competition.
A few times when I happened to be in Flagstaff, I would stop by the Arizona Daily Sun to say hello, tour his newsroom, meet his staff and see the giant press that dwarfs the one in our Uptown newsroom.
I am still familiar with many of his current staffers, who have shared with their readers the profound loss they feel for such a caring editor and newsroom leader.
Earlier this year, as we both covered the fatal shooting in Oak Creek Canyon of a Kansas tourist by a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officer in January, Randy freely provided us a copy of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office police reports as soon as his paper got them.
We obtained copies of the photos from CCSO shortly thereafter and sent them to him, no questions asked. We both commiserated about the reluctance of law enforcement to move faster, but were thankful we had each other to help disseminate the news to our readers.
In early June, I got an email from Randy asking for a few additional photos from the scene that he had overlooked. I was in Mesa with my then-very pregnant fiancee the night before our daughter was born. I went downstairs, logged in remotely and sent them to Randy. They were too large for his email server, so I resized them all and made sure he got them before I went back to bed.
I’m happy to know that over the years, after all the emails, texts, phone calls and conversations we had about news stories, the last text message correspondence we had was deeply personal. I sent him a photo of my three-hour-old daughter to which he replied, “Sweet! Congrats and hope Mom is looking just as healthy.”
I am saddened that my daughter will never meet Randy in person but glad to know he saw a photo of her before his untimely death.
We offer our deepest condolences to our colleagues at the Arizona Daily Sun, who are still coping his loss. Randy was a giant figure among the journalists in Northern Arizona. He will be missed.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
