I fondly remember celebrating The Tico Times’ 25th anniversary with Dery. I also recall the special, tender tribute she paid to her mother for her initiative in breathing life into the first edition of The Tico Times.
It was a time when the newspaper was coming of age, serious investigative journalism was emerging from the ever-eager staff, lawsuits, accreditation and licensing issues bubbled to the surface.
The move from the old Artes Gráficas plant to the new offices in the court district took place; the competition, albeit short lived, that arose from a rival, free-distribution English newspaper.
Don Richard, who had ink running in his veins, could not extricate himself from the printing business, and soon saw that The Tico Times had all of the necessary equipment to run a newspaper except for the press itself. Before long we were setting our own type, had a graphic-arts camera and were doing the color separations.
Although I was not part of the editorial staff (Judie and her lightening speed one-finger typing), the things I looked forward to the most were the late-night rush to get out the next edition, setting heads, pasting up the stories, printing labels, making the run to the Post Office to get the paper into the overseas mail. How much simpler things must be now with the computer.
The growth in the expatriate community over the last 25 years must have helped considerably circulation and with opportunities to sell ad space. Trying to get commitments from local and international companies to run continuous ads in the paper was a weekly struggle; I can only hope that that pressure has diminished somewhat.
I left Costa Rica in 1983 to live in the Dominican Republic and eventually returned to the United States, married and started a family in Richmond, Virginia. After a career in international sales and marketing and international banking, my family and I relocated to Haifa, Israel, where I have been the Director of Finance at the Baha’i World Centre for the past 14 years. My daughters have grown up and are now attending university in the States.
I hope that The Tico Times has a wonderful celebration and that the next 50 years will continue to be ones of excitement and commitment to excellence in journalism. You are to be congratulated on all you have done.
–Gary Hogenson
