Charles Apple

Happy VizEds birthday wishes go out today to my buddy Mike Braun of the Fort Myers News-Press. Mike turns 53 today.

Mike spent more than eight years at The Vindicator in Youngstown, Ohio, where he was chief of the design desk.

He suffered greatly during the infamous strike against the Vindicator several years ago. Because he was in management, he didn’t strike. Instead, worked 30 to 40 hours a day. And walked to work and back home again barefoot in the snow. Uphill both ways.

Or something like that. The details escape me now. But you get the idea: The man worked hard.

Then, Mike got lucky. About two-and-a-half years ago, he managed to hook up with The News-Press in Fort Myers. Not only does he do pretty decent work there, he’s even been promoted — he’s now Senior News Designer.

Most of all, however, in sunny Florida, there is no snow in which to walk home. Plus, there are no hills. So Mike’s a happy guy.

Here’s something else I’ll bet you didn’t know about Mike: He’s the identical twin of Apollo 12 commander Charles “Pete” Conrad. The two of them were separated at birth:

Mike is the one with the better teeth.
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I’d love to post a bushel of samples of Mike’s News-Press work. However, he has posted only three pages in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio. And two of those jpegs appear to have technical problems.

That leaves only one of his old Vindicator pages to post. It’s from 2003, but at least it’s a good one:

Mike shares a birthday with the Chicago Tribune’s Jonathon Berlin, Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson, TV news personalities Jane Pauley and Dan Rather, the late John Candy and historical figure Chiang Kai-Shek.

In addition, today is Increase Your Psychic Powers Day. And, of course, it’s Halloween!

Best wishes for a happy birthday, Mikey! And post some new pages soon!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 5:04 am and is filed under Happy birthday, News design, Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.