Some good news from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies:
Clancy and Margo DuBos always knew that Gambit Weekly would return. “There was never a nanosecond of doubt that we were coming back,” explains Clancy, who, along with his wife, is co-owner of the New Orleans alternative weekly that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. “Never. Never.”
It’s easy to understand why. The couple have spent most of their adult lives working at the paper, where they began as employees in the early 1980s. By June of 1987, Margo had moved through the ranks to become Gambit’s publisher, and four years later, she and Clancy purchased the paper from Landmark Communications. Margo reflects on her first years at the then burgeoning weekly with fondness: “Everybody did everything and we loved it. We just thought it was so cool that we were doing this job that was so important. The [readers] appreciated another paper in the community and another voice.”
As Margo describes it, the initial years at Gambit were characterized by “a lot of needs and not a lot of people.” It took a great deal of tenacity and ingenuity to lift the paper to the level of success it maintained prior to that late August day when Katrina made landfall. But with nearly two and a half decades invested in the publication, even a catastrophic natural disaster would do little to discourage the DuBoses from returning to what had become their life’s work. “We’re about to celebrate our 25th anniversary [at the paper]. How could I work that hard and get the company where it is and walk away from that? It was just unfathomable to me to try and comprehend,” says Margo.
Hurricane Katrina may have left Gambit’s Mid-City office submerged under more than two feet of water, but on November 1, the award-winning paper will be back in print.
Here’s wishing them the best.