Death of a hero

By Mike Tupa
May 28,2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT

My friend and mentor — and the gate-keeper of my professional destiny — died the other day.

George lived to be 89. I count the 36-and-a-half years I knew him as one of the greatest blessings of my life.

George was an important man — a newspaper publisher and pillar of the peculiar city Ely, Nevada, nestled between high desert basin on one side and shadowed otherwise by looming Bristlecone pine mountain ranges and giant slopes.

George Carnes lived in Ely for the final 60 years of his life, all of them with Bonnie, his wife of 61 years.

In his sphere, George was a giant. In the early 1980s when the copper industry abandoned Ely — leaving behind a few buildings, a giant smelter smokestack and mass unemployment — George somehow kept the Ely Daily Times newspaper open.

He tightened the paper’s belt and — more importantly — through its pages rallied the community, kept hope alive and help lead the transition to a more diverse economy, including the revival of silver and gold mining in the area.

By the late 1980s, Ely began to thrive once again. That’s when I arrived in Ely.

George was a one-of-a-kind character and gentleman.

He wasn’t a big man. In reconstructing him in my memory from more than 30 years ago, I believe he stood no taller than 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10 and probably weighed 160 pounds or less. His body shape was lean and wiry, topped by a well-portioned head on a small neck and prominent ears that supported the stems of his sizable glasses. Even though he was already 52, his hair — conservatively cut in a businessman’s style —  was still a deep brown.

Clark Kent couldn’t have looked any more mild-mannered than George — especially when George’s mouth formed an ingratiating toothless grin from ear-to-ear.

But anyone who judged George as some kind of an unassuming milksop-type character had no eyes to see with.

He possessed a boundless amount of energy and intensity — not expressed in noisy tones but displayed in perpetual motion, fearless resolve and unquestioned, but kindly, firmness.

George was an anomaly. He always dressed and groomed himself to flawless sharpness. But at work a stained smock was always close at hand so that he could run the job shop for small printing jobs or run the newspaper press when one of the regular pressmen was absent.

That happened often because George hired students from nearby White Pine High School to do that job. It was a fantastic opportunity for them — during my time in Ely one of them after he graduated moved to a paper in Southern California to work as part of a huge press crew.

George also hired some high school kids to proofread our copy and other duties.

But he left most of the other work in running the paper to experienced and hard-working professionals.

It was, admittedly, a small operation for a paper with a daily circulation of 2,500  — one editor, one reporter, a receptionist, an office manager, a typesetter, a paste-up specialist, a plate burner and two advertising people. I’m not sure who headed the circulation department and oversaw the paperboys — George probably did.

George stood in company with the powerful — governors, Senators and Congressmen, or candidates for those offices, made White Pine County and a visit with George and my editor Kent Harper an essential stop on their itinerary.

While talking about George, I have to mention Kent Harper. Like me, Kent hadn’t had a straight-line path to a journalism career. He had lived a fascinating life, including walking away from a devastating auto accident.

Kent was one of the most intelligent, widely-read, humbly philosophical and intuitive tutors I’ve ever had.

It was George and Kent who called me on that fateful day in mid-December 1987. I had just barely fallen asleep after my graveyard shift as a minimum-wage security guard in Salt Lake City.

The phone buzzer startled me awake. Kent and George  — who were on a conference line — queried me about my qualifications to fill the open reporter’s spot at the Dailey Times.

After the conversation, they called up a few minutes later and offered me the job.

It was the culmination of a dream that just one day before I thought would remain in the realm of untenable fantasy.

This was on a Monday. George asked me if I could move to Ely by Friday. I gave a resounding “yes!” After that call, I rang up the protective service office and explained to the manager  — an extremely nice lady who I believe had greatly appreciated my dependability during my 23 months with the company — about why I had to leave immediately. I offered to work that night’s shift.

She told me not to worry about that and she wished me well in Ely. It was just 12 days prior to Christmas 1987.

Why George hired me — other than the desperation of bringing somebody on board as quickly as possible — I'll never quite understand fully. 

I was 31-and-a-half years old, a former U.S. Marine radar technician with no regular newspaper experience other than the few months I had worked for our college campus newspaper. Other than that, I had written a few football articles as a stringer for my hometown newspaper and had covered road races for a monthly magazine called “The Utah Runner.” That publication didn’t even give me gas money or any cash. My pay was in a $5 restaurant coupon for each article.

I’m sure George and Kent harbored some serious doubts about whether I was the right fit. After all, there was more to being a small paper reporter than just writing articles. The job also required professional skills in page layout, interviews, photography, self-editing copy, writing headlines, keeping accurate notes, getting along well with other people, meeting deadlines and others.

They hired me to do it all — I was Kent’s only reporter. For everything.

I covered country commission board meetings, hospital board meetings, school board meetings, power co-op board meetings, crime news, court news, miscellaneous features and photographs — and of course all the local sports news.

All that with a starting salary of $5 per hour — plus overtime. I eventually got to the point where I didn’t report nearly all my overtime after George complained.

The number of hours I worked didn’t matter to me — I immersed myself completely into the job, probably averaging 65-or-more hours a week.

Within just a few weeks, George and Kent bestowed on me the title of sports editor. Not that it changed my other duties or meant a pay increase. It was just a nod to my effort to fill my sports pages with local reports instead of wire copy.

George was not a teddy bear personality but could be very pleasant. I never felt completely secure on where I stood with him. He was pretty much all business when it came to putting out the paper. I cringed sometimes when he and Kent met behind closed doors because I feared my future at the paper was in doubt.

I remember one day when George chastised me — and rightly so — for putting out a piece of writing chock full of typos or grammatical errors. I’m so grateful he did that. It forced me to look at my work more carefully.

Time went on and I learned more about this extraordinary man.

I witnessed the enthusiastic side of him after he watched the pay-per-view wrestling matches between Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. This matchup fascinated George and he liked to gush a little about it.

I don’t recall him paying me a lot of gushing compliments — that wasn’t his way. But during the passing months his respect grew for my effort, my hard work and my determination to get better. 

My respect for him also increased, both as a unique personality and as a publisher. As I look back, I’m not in a position to evaluate the professional quality of my work. I did my best according to the level at which I hovered.

The months and years in Ely passed happily. George attempted to talk me into taking up cross country skiing, an activity he enjoyed. I just didn’t have the time, but I appreciated his concern about my well-being.

He and Kent helped me through some of the tougher parts of being a small-town newspaperman — namely the unpopular stories.

One of them concerned criminal charges filed against an extremely popular school district official — someone for whom I also felt great respect.

But based on my reporting and contact with the district attorney’s office, the paper pursued this story honestly and courageously. We took some hits from some of the leading citizens who disagreed with the prosecution. A joint letter to the editor, roundly criticizing our attention to the charges, was signed by many of the community pillars, including my own church bishop.

George and Kent stood firm, however, in the decision to follow through. After several weeks, I believe the individual reached a plea agreement with the district attorney’s office. I felt terrible about what he had endured, regardless of the facts. But George and Kent taught me truth and a wide presentation of facts should be the paramount factors in reporting the tough stories.

Another time, while doing some night time shopping, I walked to my car in the crowded parking lot and was confronted by a member on one of the boards I covered. He literally confronted me and made veiled, non-specific threats against me and my supervisors if we didn’t change our tone of coverage.

As soon as I got home I called Kent to report it and later went over it with George. I think there was some concern for my safety but we carried on reporting on this board as honestly as we could.

All these experiences and the lessons I learned from George and Kent helped shape me as a competent journalist, a professional reporter, an effective writer and — more importantly — a better man of character.

I don’t know totally what I would have become — both in terms of profession and as a man — if George Carnes had not been there.

After two years in Ely I began to feel the stirring to take the next step forward in my career. By then I was almost 34 years old and realized time would not slow down for me.

Plus my mom had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She had always believed I had the ability to write for a big newspaper in Southern California and I wanted to prove her right. It was she who had accompanied me on that futile 1,200-mile round trip four years earlier to Western Nevada for the job interview. Other than Heavenly Father, she had been the fire that lit my motivation, the transfusion of confidence that turned my anemic self-image into an audacious attitude that carried me above my inner doubts.

I ran into a challenge in moving on from Ely, however. Ironically, the biggest obstacle was George.

In late April or early May 1990, a newspaper in Southern California — a weekly publication called the Butterfield Express, which was part of the same corporation as Ely (Donrey Media) — arranged for my travel to Moreno Valley, Calif., for an interview.

There was something deeper to this than just a promotion. I was a native of the Los Angeles greater metropolitan area and we had lived there many years during my childhood. My mom had graduated from high school, married and had welcomed both my sister and I to this earth in Southern California.

Getting a job there was like — in a sense — going home.

Anyway, my interview went well. I felt as the editor Larry dropped me off at the airport for the return trip to Ely that I had the job. The biggest question was when would I be able to transfer. They wanted me there as soon as possible.

That’s where George became a barrier. To put it frankly, he was highly reluctant to let me leave and felt he had the top priority on my services. He insisted before I leave that we hire my replacement and I spend a couple of weeks, or so, training him or her.

This meant a delay of at least three or four weeks — at a minimum — before I could leave for Moreno Valley. I felt highly frustrated, especially since the Moreno Valley paper called me every few days to find out when I was coming. I was ready to leave right then — but George wouldn’t sign off on it.

I feared the Moreno Valley paper would decide at some unspecified point to hire someone else.

It seemed as hard as it had been to be hired at Ely it would be just as tough to leave. We finally hired another reporter to take my place in Ely. I worked with him for a few days before departure for Southern California, pulling a trailer containing my worldly possessions behind me. Among those possessions were an official proclamation of thanks from the White Pine County Commission and many thank-you letters and commendations from other boards and individuals.

My heart was packed with memories from Ely and of George that I’ve carried for a lifetime.

My career had been launched — George had been the booster rocket.

So, what was George’s history? 

George was born in Illinois and lost his father while he was still a boy. He grew up in Wyoming, where he learned to love the mountains and nature. He began his newspaper career at age 21, starting in Las Vegas, branching off in the business side of the operation. He would spend a few years split between Ely and another Nevada town prior to returning in 1965 to Ely, where he became the publisher for 34 years.

After his first wife passed away, he married Bonnie — beginning a union that lasted 61 years on this earth. George’s interests ranged from horses to the outdoors to photography to furniture making.

During 30-plus years after I left Ely, my career would be blessed with major recognition — an unanimous Citation of Appreciation from the Oklahoma State Senate after I retired, induction into the Bartlesville (Okla.) Athletic Hall of Fame, several annual first place awards in categories such as photography, sportswriting and sports coverage from the Oklahoma Press Association, an Official Proclamation of Thanks from the Oroville (Calif.) City Mayor, nomination as one of four finalists by the National Sports Media Association as the 2023 Oklahoma Sportswriter of the Year, an autographed letter of appreciation from two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin, the annual Joseph Orengo Award for sportsmanship and contribution to local sports from the Eagles Club chapter of Oroville, Calif., and so on.

As far as I’m concerned, George Carnes has shared whatever honors and positive recognition I’ve received in my career. 

If not for him, I never would have had a chance.

If not for his mentorship and confidence in me I never would have fully spread my wings as a journalist and a newspaperman.

I still recall our first face-to-face meeting — on the Sunday evening prior to my first day with the Ely Daily Times. He told me of the importance of local news — that people would rather read about a game that had happened a few days earlier than a wire story about a game the night before.

I obviously never forgot that. My whole emphasis on local coverage took root in the words and guidance George gave me that evening.

We continued to communicate by letters and Christmas cards throughout my entire career and even beyond retirement in 2023, which took place just a few weeks prior to the 36th Anniversary of when I first walked through the doors of the Ely Daily Times.

George continued to encourage and compliment me throughout the years — each letter boosted me. 

Meanwhile, he continued to serve as the Ely publisher for nearly a decade after I left the paper. During that time, the Ely newspaper building was severely damaged when an ambulance crashed into it. The operation had to be moved to a different site, but George again kept the paper going.

Then he went into a well-deserved retirement with his beautiful wife Bonnie. Twenty-six years after his retirement, death finally claimed him, as it does for all kings and paupers and those in-between.

I’m just one of those who has carried a part of George with him throughout the remainder of our lives. 

For 50 years he brought the truth — both good and bad, mostly good and uplifting — to the people of Ely and eastern Nevada. Who can calculate how far his influence, or the residue of his efforts, has stretched throughout this globe.

A man is born, raised and does his best with the circumstances that he’s handed and that he creates. It’s about making the maximum difference for those within one’s realm.

That’s what defines a hero and a great man.

That's what defines George Carnes.