To the editor:

If Dolph Simons Jr. had begun his final “Saturday Column” (July 30, 2016), a little over a year ago with a line from an old Carter Family song, “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone,” he would have been correct. The new columns that run on Saturdays are well worth a read. But, it just isn’t quite the same.

For 40 years Mr. Simons has added spice to my Saturday morning eggs and bacon – sometimes to my taste, sometimes not, but always interesting. I never tired of his unending string of questions and inexhaustible store of unnamed sources.

I grew up in an era when a dozen Kansas publishers pretty much set the agenda for their communities and for the Sunflower State. In many respects, Mr. Simons signified the end of that era. His 3,000+ columns frequently dealt with what he thought best for Lawrence, or KU, or Kansas, or the Journal-World. He kept the paper vibrant long after most of his contemporaries had ceded the field to other media.

For a publisher to put his name on a column week after week and allow his readers (including me) to take their best shot in a letter-to-the-editor, when they disagreed, takes a unique sort of courage. It is a little like standing unclothed in the middle of a room filled with your friends and neighbors and inviting them to comment on the imperfections of your body. Not everyone is suited to do that for 60 years.

I bet he misses the column too.