What few readers realized when we launched225 magazine was that we had an editorial staff of three people.
Jeff Roedel, Sarah Hunt Young and I were fortunate, though, to be part of a well-established publishing company. We had the support and contribution of talented designers, advertising sales executives and business office staff.
The architect of 225’s colorful and vibrant design is Art Director Hoa Vu, who speaks two languages and thinks in a third: visual language. Along with his talented design team, they have kept these pages crackling with life from the get-go.
Jeff Roedel, who would later serve as editor, wrote many of 225’s most memorable stories. Rebecca Breeden joined as assistant managing editor, enlivening the magazine with her singular moxie and authority-challenging spirit. Then, she left to chase her dreams in New York City, a blessing in disguise of sorts because it filled the next few years of her life with adventure and meaning before cancer took her from us in October 2011.
Much of 225’s content was the work of freelance writers and photographers, self-employed contractors who gave the vibrant pages meaning.
It was from Baton Rouge’s rich and talented pool of creators that we found many superb contributors. Being editor was like being commissioner and coach of a nerd fantasy league.
Our freelance writers surprise, delight or move our readers. For me, opening an emailed Word attachment from a contributing writer was like unwrapping a gift. It was my favorite part of the job.
We could tailor assignments to the skills of each contributor, sometimes in unorthodox ways. When LSU football coach Les Miles became Baton Rouge’s biggest celebrity, people wanted to know what made him tick. What was he like with his family? What was the deal with the high hat? It was an assignment that required more insight about people than football.
So I sent a poet. Local creative writer Amy Alexander embedded with the Miles family. She shared meals with them, hung out while the kids did homework and got to be a fly on the wall in the coach’s office. Amy’s cover story was how many readers first got to know Les Miles.
To report on the various serial killers stalking our streets, we deployed former federal agent-turned-author Chuck Hustmyre. He was skilled at doing the “grunt work” required, like staking out criminal suspects to snag interviews, or chatting up strangers to help him slip in to a federally run, crime-ridden camp for Katrina evacuees. Chuck even spent an evening in a roach-infested motel for a story.
When it came to covering music for 225, a number of people offered their services. In the end I chose a former computer programmer who was more passionate about music than any of them. Alex V. Cook started writing and blogging about bands and concerts. Today, he even plays in his own band.
Local writer and author Maggie Heyn Richardson was writing mouth-watering, informative pieces about food and the people who prepare it long before the “foodie movement” was really a thing.
Veteran newsman and writer Chris Gautreau once took our readers on an unforgettable bus ride with a high school girls soccer team to their last playoff game. His reporting and descriptions made us feel their boundless hope, their passion and grit and, finally, their vulnerability and sadness when their ride was over.
Dozens of superb local writers chronicled changing Baton Rouge in the first five years of 225. Their skill notwithstanding, far fewer readers would have noticed those stories if not for the great work of our contributing photographers.
I was proud to work with Lori Waselchuk, who I consider one of the finest photojournalists ever to work in Baton Rouge. Through her pictures we felt what our subjects felt, like the helplessness of Katrina evacuees languishing in FEMA’s crime-ridden Renaissance Village.
Photographer and entrepreneur Brian Baiamonte drew on boundless energy and a maverick’s aesthetic to create unforgettable images. Chad Chenier graduated with a degree in mathematics before learning his photo chops as a contributor for the Los Angeles Times. He uses calm patience and technical skill to create detailed and sweeping pictures.
Tim Mueller, a graduate of one of the nation’s finest journalism schools, shared with 225 his unmatched sense of “story,” which is evident every time he creates a picture.
Covering Baton Rouge’s exploding food scene demanded a photographer who truly understood food. When I met David Gallent, he was selling his food photography at the Red Stick Farmers Market and teaching cooking classes. A graduate of the famed culinary school that produced Anthony Bourdain and Cali food truck founder Roy Choi of Kogi Korean BBQ-to-Go fame, Gallent quickly became our go-to food photographer.
I think when Jeannie Frey Rhodes peers into her viewfinder she can glimpse her subjects’ souls, often capturing them at their most fragile and human. A youthful Aaron Hogan joined our team brimming with unbridled optimism and creativity. He made great photographs largely because he just didn’t know what was not possible. And no one is better at capturing her subject’s humanity than Marie Constantin. Erin Skinner and a host of others enlivened 225 with their photography.
If 225 has unsung heroes, they are the copy editors. Bright, hard-working freelancers who grind away behind the scenes to fix problems and polish copy until it sings. Robin Mayhall, Marissa Frayer and Adrian E. Hirsch kept us between the ditches and made reading 225 easier and more fun.
The first several years, the last word in 225 was the Cayenne Report, our satirical take on Baton Rouge life. Sometimes the pieces were so well written we’d receive a call from a worked up reader, like the man anxious because I-10 and I-12 were to be “divorced” after 20 years of being split. Staff members wrote some of those items, but many were provided by our hand-picked team of satire enthusiasts, who got no money and no credit (lest they be fired from day jobs).
It is my hope that every reader grows in their appreciation of the distinctive voices, talents and hard work of all of 225’s behind-the-scenes contributors.
Tom Guarisco was editor of 225 from its launch in November 2005 to December 2011.
