I was recovering in a Kuwaiti hospital from a life-threatening illness when I received a Facebook message from someone I’d never met, someone I now call Cuz, who calls me Cuz, Richard Sayer.
Rich hails from Rhode Island and his people are buried in a cemetery on the south end of Aquidneck Island, in Newport. My people are buried in a cemetery in the middle of the island. We have come to believe we are related, through history and blood; and, we are related through our love of light and photojournalism.
I had interviewed for a teaching position at Allegheny College, yes, from my hospital bed, when Rich sent me the message via Facebook. He was so excited I’d be coming to teach. I exchanged messages with Rich, told him I had not yet accepted the position, though his enthusiasm for the possibilities of journalism at the small private liberal arts college helped seal the deal. That and an the endorsement from my then new friend Sgt. Rob Taylor, who had my back on assignment in Afghanistan. He was an Allegheny football champion and 2013 grad, who said the school was all about excellence. I was all in.
Rich and I worked together to create a journalism conference and multimedia workshop at the college. It became an annual event for the four years that I taught at the college as a visiting assistant professor. Rich made the dominant photo that leads this blog post. He documented the entire weekend for every conference, as he also mentored student journalists. In March 2016, he photographed my dear friend and colleague David Gilkey, who was a keynote speaker at our conference entitled, Welcome the Stranger. The black-and-white image is a favorite of mine, and I treasure it all the more because, on June 5, 2016, David was killed on assignment in Afghanistan, just three months after he spent the weekend with aspiring student journalists at our conference.
Local journalism and community papers of record have taken a hit in the last few years. New deserts are part of our rural landscapes now. The pandemic has hastened the layoffs and demise of other papers and the staff who served their communities.
Rich was laid off after a 23-year career as a dedicated photojournalist in northwest Pennsylvania. Without missing a beat, without a paycheck backing his efforts and on his own initiative, he continued to drive the backroads of his community, seeking stories and images that represent the extraordinary ordinary lives of the people in the small towns in his corner of the world.
His dedication, empathy and unrelenting commitment to community journalism inspired me to start this new blog after a long hiatus.
Here’s how Rich describes his work/blog.
“Losing a job after 23 years, I have decided to try telling stories on my own. Using the crossroads as a metaphor for life and the physical location, I will tell regional stories stemming outward from …where Routes 322 and 8 cross. I will be looking for stories to tell and I hope to find my inner Charles Kuralt someday.”
On June 28, he wrote about a sister’s grief after her brother, at the age of 62, died suddenly of complications due to the coronavirus. The post is titled “COVID really isn’t a hoax.”
It’s so representative of Rich’s love of people and the moments in their lives that matter most to them. I encourage you to read the post, follow his blog and do whatever you can to encourage Rich as he travels the backroads from the crossroads of Routes 322 and 8. Offer your feedback. Send him your support. It will mean the world to him. It can get lonely tilting at windmills some days on those back roads and long drives.
