TOM MACHAMER

posted by James Reel

    Back in the early 1980s, the local news didn’t have to wedge into little slots in Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as it does now. (KUAT-FM doesn’t carry those programs, but our local news is simulcast with KUAZ, which does.) Newscasts back then lasted a full 15 minutes, give or take a few seconds (there’s no leeway now, when they have to mesh precisely with NPR). Our news director at that time, Tom Machamer, had a very relaxed attitude toward timing. He would always amble his way 20, 30, 45 seconds beyond the formal endpoint of the newscast, intruding into my four-hour block of music. This annoyed me a little, anal-retentive person that I am, but I never made an issue of it. For one thing, it just didn’t matter. For another, I saw no reason to make trouble for Tom, who was an able newsman and a very nice guy. That wasn’t just my opinion. Steve Jess was a KUAT news producer back then; years later, when he became Statehouse News Bureau Chief for Boise State Radio, someone asked him who his mentor had been, and Steve answered, “The news director Tom Machamer in Tucson, Ariz. was an incredible people person who had a gentle way of dealing with people. I try to follow his example personally and professionally.” (Go here and scroll down to Page 6.)
    Tom left KUAT many years ago to do missionary work with his church. His work had taken him to Fiji; I just learned  that recently, he had finished building a house for someone, went snorkeling, then began to feel tired and came out of the water. He died of a heart attack on the beach.
    The process of dying is often ugly, but passing quickly on a Fiji beach, relaxing after doing public-service work? I can’t think of a better way to go for a nice guy like Tom Machamer.