An In-Depth Look at the Reporting Life of Ruth Anne

From the Minnesota newspaper where Ruth Anne Maddox worked. Note the comments on her work, and the comments by Times-Union editor Gary Gerard.

Once you met Ruth Anne, you knew her

By Shawn Hogendorf, Correspondent

On Wednesday morning, Ruth Anne Maddox was supposed to write the news, not make the headlines.

When Ruth Anne got out of bed in the morning, the world became a brighter place. After she was found murdered in her Prior Lake home early Wednesday, a dark cloud was cast over those who knew her both as a friend and respected journalist throughout the community.

Her wit, love of words, grammar and ability to tell a story was unparalleled, colleagues said.

One friend, a former reporter for the Shakopee Valley News, remembers a conversation with Ruth Anne about the crazy hours reporters work.

Mary (Sasa) Hilde remembers Ruth Anne saying: “I often work 10-plus hour days and just keep going; I like to consider it loyalty, but it’s probably just stupidity.”

That’s the type of witty humor and honesty anyone who came in contact with Ruth Anne came to know.

She was also known for her passion for the trade.

Pat Minelli, editor of the Valley News, where Ruth Anne worked for the last year, said before she came to the Valley News, he always admired her writing, in particular her columns while she was writing for the Savage Pacer.

“After she left the Pacer, I was thrilled with the opportunity to entice her to the Shakopee Valley News,” Minelli said.

Ruth Anne had respect for everyone she came in contact with, whether it was while covering school board meetings or interviewing sources for feature stories, Minelli said. Even when she wrote news that wasn’t so pleasant for her sources, people still respected her, he said.

“Whenever I was on the street, people would come up to me, gushing with compliments for her,” Minelli said. “It was unbelievable how well she was liked. I have never had a reporter that so many people would go out of their way to say how much they enjoyed her.”

Sarah Koehn, assistant to the superintendent of Shakopee Schools, generally sat next to Ruth Anne during the Shakopee School Board meetings and said the two got to know each other well, both professionally and personally.

Koehn said Ruth Anne usually mentioned her 19-year-old daughter, and did so while covering the meeting the night before she disappeared. She was looking forward to strengthening their relationship when she moved back to her home state of Indiana at the end of the year, Koehn said. Ruth Anne had recently told the Valley News she would be resigning.

Minelli received an e-mail from a Girl Scout troop leader Ruth Anne recently wrote a story about. The leader noted how thrilled the girls were to meet Ruth Anne, an ex-Girl Scout herself.

“She took an extraordinary time to talk with the girls and look at their badges,” Minelli said. “That is the way she did her job, and that is why everyone liked her.”

There were two things to know about Ruth Anne, co-workers said: 1) If you’re writing a text message or e-mail, make sure your grammar was correct, and 2) never, ever call her Ruth.

“Ruth Anne always wrote very clean copy,” Minelli said. “She is one of the better writers I have ever had in that way. She had an eagle eye. It was very rare that she ever had a typo.”

When Ruth Anne was able to get away from her job, she was sure to be found with two dog leashes for her dogs, Quincy and Roxxi, in her hands and a pocket full of treats for any other dogs she came across at the Cleary Lake Dog Park.

That’s who Ruth Anne was, her friends say: a caring friend, a confidant, a loving mother, a dedicated employee, a beloved sister, an animal lover, a daughter and a person always willing to take responsibility, forgive and move on.

Ruth Anne was born Aug. 20, 1963, in Chicago Heights, Ill., to Paul and Lois (Whitehead) Lipka, who currently live in Lake Placid, Fla. She was previously married to Mark Long. Family members and several close friends were too distraught to comment on Ruth Anne’s death this week, but her mother posted a comment at www.shakopeenews.com describing Ruth Anne as a “daddy’s girl.”

Her mother wrote, “As her mother we had a lot in common and got along very well, but first and foremost she was her Dad's daughter. When her sisters and brother wanted something special, they always said, ‘Ruth Anne, you ask him 'cuz he never says ‘no’ to you.’“And Ruth Anne adored her Dad,” her mother continued. “She was never embarrassed by him like most kids are when they are growing up. She listened to him and observed what he did and said. What she learned from him showed up in her writing. I recently read one of her blogs and it was all about his funny ‘adages.’ I’ve heard them for over 50 years and they drive me crazy, but not her. She could have written an entire book about her Dad and his funny sayings. Ruth Anne always (had) a beautiful smile and (was) an enjoyable clown.”

As a reporter who covered the Savage Police Department and the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District for the Pacer from 2004 through 2007, Ruth Anne interviewed many people on a regular basis, said Capt. Dave Muelken.

“She approached her work in a friendly manner – and with dedication to get the story and get it right,” he said. “Her work was a benefit not only to newspaper readers but to the city of Savage in providing fair and accurate coverage of the matters affecting our citizens. We are saddened by her death and extend our deepest condolences to her co-workers, her family and her friends.”

Pacer editor Nancy Huddleston hired Ruth Anne when she first moved to the Twin Cities area from Indiana. She jumped into the job feet first and never looked back, Huddleston remembers.

“Her primary dedication to the newspaper was to its readers, to make sure she got their story,” she said. “So many people were touched by her thoughtfulness not only as a reporter but as a great person. If you met Ruth Anne once, you always remembered her for her laughter, wonderful smile and caring personality. Her contributions to the Pacer cannot be put into words, as there were so many.”

Muelken remembered Ruth Anne as a person who always had a smile on her face, was friendly and giggly. She was also thorough and always did her job well, he said.

Although police and reporters don't always see eye-to-eye on what should be public information, Muelken said Ruth Anne was always diplomatic, had the interest of the citizens in mind; and was responsible, fair and factual in her writing.

“She never wrote a story from one direction,” he said.

Most police officers don’t want to talk to the media because they don’t trust them, Muelken said. That wasn’t the case with Ruth Anne.

“If you looked up the definition of a police reporter in the dictionary, you wouldn’t find her picture,” Muelken said of a relationship that developed over years of sitting across a desk discussing the police calls for the week. “She just wasn’t your typical police reporter.”

As a reader of the paper, Muelken added, her feature stories are what made her unique. “She was kind of a character,” he said.

Besides covering police, Ruth Anne was always willing to share a piece of herself with her readers through blogs, personal columns and quirky details that became part of the story, Muelken said.

“I never saw her down,” he said. “She always found the light in a dark situation.”

That light also showed through in Ruth Anne’s numerous comments across Southwest Newspapers’ Web sites and blogs that were written so well.

Ruth Anne captivated Shakopee readers with her blogs that were constantly among the most read and can be read at www.shakopeevalleynews.com.

In one of Ruth Anne’s blog posts, largely focused on exercise and eating healthy, she highlighted the ups and downs of hard work and dedication to improve her life, along with the strife of dieting in an entertaining way that kept readers on the edge of their seat waiting for her next post.

Ruth Anne also wrote passionately about her two dogs, a pit bull-rottweiler mix, Quincy, and a pit bull named Roxxi. Her blog was titled “A pitty-ful dog,” and she advocated for the breed, posted humorous pictures of her two “babies” and titled entries with comical headlines like “If I had to live in a van down by the river, my dogs would be happy as clams,” where she wrote of her companions’ swimming experience in the dog park.

Lori Carlson, editor of the Prior Lake American, recalls how easily Ruth Anne fit in when she joined the staff of the Pacer, which shares an office with the American.“She instantly became an office favorite,” Carlson said. “Ruth Anne always had a story to tell. I spent a lot of time exchanging pet stories with her, and we would arrange to meet up at the dog park. She was just a bright, smiling person. When I had meetings to attend in our Shakopee office, I’d always make sure to stop and talk to her.”

“Ruth Anne’s blogs on our Web site were amazing,” Minelli said. “It was always a hoot to read. She was tremendously gifted. People would get a kick out of things like what she did last night, and not everyone can do that.”

The entertaining style of writing and her ability to capture readers came naturally to Ruth Anne, because it was a part of her personality, Minelli said. Her life wasn’t totally happy – those close to her knew she was having a tough time in her marriage – but the average person would never know it. She was laughing constantly, whether it was on the phone or just chatting, he said.

“I am amazed she could be so happy, witty and comical, when you know everything wasn’t perfect,” Minelli added. “She would talk about things that weren’t so good in her life, but she always put it away, closed that drawer and then lightened the mood and made everyone else feel good.”

Although blogs are generally about personal experiences, Ruth Anne always had a knack for asking the right questions and picking the interesting detail to tell her stories.

She was always able to bring out the best in her sources. Just when the source thought there was nothing more that could be printed, she found the question that made the story a keepsake. Ruth Anne always found the time to stick around after an event to get to know people on a level deeper than the surface, and this always shined through in her work.

Her ability to organize and keep in constant contact with sources was the reason she never got “scooped” on a story.

On the weekends, Ruth Anne also worked part-time at Kohl’s in St. Louis Park.

Before moving to Prior Lake, Ruth Anne was a general-assignment reporter covering police and courts as well as a lifestyles editor for the Times-Union in Warsaw, Ind., where she worked from 1987 to 2003. During her tenure, she reported under the bylines of Ruth Anne Lipka and Ruth Anne Long.

Times-Union General Manager Gary Gerard, who worked with Ruth Anne for 14 years, said he was “lucky enough to inherit her as a reporter” when he began his career with the newspaper in 1988.

As a reporter, Ruth Anne was hard-working,enterprising and always able to come up with unique and interesting story ideas, Gerard said. “There was never a slow news day with Ruth Anne on our staff,” he said.

Her great sense of humor, wit and ability to make others laugh were all traits Gerard remembers vividly. “She would come through the door and look at us and say something like, ‘I’m just delightful. Everyone just loves me,’ Gerard said. “She was always bubbly. That was the way she was when I met her.”

Ruth Anne’s ability to root out a story was incredible in a coverage area where she was responsible for four judges, four courts and a county of 75,000 people, he said. It was a big job, and she had a system for tracking things through the courts and keeping up with everything.

The Times-Union went online in 1996, and Gerard said to this day when a new police and courts reporter starts with the newspaper, he goes back to when Ruth Anne covered police and courts, pulls up a month’s worth of her work and tells reporters that’s what he expects from them.

“She is still the benchmark, the standard for reporters at this paper,” he said.

Upon hearing the news of Ruth Anne’s murder, Gerard said the initial reaction was shock.

“I was stunned,” he said. “I couldn’t believe someone could do this to her, or want to do such a thing to her. My solemn hope is that justice in this case is swift and severe.”

Colleen Hatami, a friend of Ruth Anne’s since the two were in middle school orchestra together, said she is choosing to focus on the laughter and love her friend offered, not the way she died.

“Today I choose not to be full of hate, anger, guilt, ugliness and resentment towards her death. I woke up and chose to fill my heart full of all the love I have for Ruth Anne,” Hatami said.

A long-time friend and former co-worker with her at the Times-Union, Vicki Taylor, said “Ruth Anne was an instant friend. That is just who she was. You couldn’t help but love her. She was the funniest person I ever met and the one person you would want to cross paths with if you were in a bad mood.

“I always told her she was a younger version of Erma Bombeck.”