Tracie Cone, the former owner and publisher of The Pinnacle newspaper, eulogized her friend and colleague —Kate Woods —during a recent memorial service for the local journalist who died May 25 in a single-car accident along New Idria Road in southern San Benito County.
Here is the text of Cone’s speech:
“My dear Kate, writer, artist, musician, and life force of our universe. And so much more.
One of the hardest and most rewarding parts of my 30-year journalism career was the 6 years I spent as your boss and editor. One of the most fun parts was having you as my beloved friend.
I met Kate three years before I bought what was then a grocery store shopper called The Pinnacle. I was a magazine writer for the San Jose Mercury News and I lived in Hollister and in 1996 or so saw a story, buried on page 13, about scientists from the EPA gathering toxic evidence at the New Idria mine. And they were being followed by gun-toting residents of the Futures Foundation, which owned the place. Page 13. A fire on an empty, parked school bus occupied the front. What a bizarre incident. So I called Kate and she was a hoot. She invited me up, and I drove to the far edge of nowhere, where I met Kate and Kemp and heard about Benitoite and mercury and UFOs and alien abductions and toxic water and crazy drug slaves and saw Joaquin Murietta’s head. And that was just a part of it. It was the most bizarre and unexpected interview of my life to this date. I was in this strange and intriguing place, and nobody on earth knew where I was. And I got back to the office and for once in my life I didn’t know how to tell a story. It took me a year to wrap my brain around it.
Then Kate was on the magazine cover, bundled in a wool sweater, squatting near the orange creek. Holy cow. Those eyes!
After the story came out, a whole ‘nother side of Kate was revealed to me. Music historians from Stanford University desperately wanted to find her. She was a musical legend in the mariachi world. A violinist.
Fast forward three years: I have hocked my house and everything I own to buy The Pinnacle, because I loved San Benito County so much. And the week before I take ownership in November 1999, Kate has a front-page article about a marijuana eradication effort. I have committed the lede to memory, because it traumatized me: “Jack Boot thugs brought the government’s insane war on drugs to San Benito County this week when they uprooted 500 plants from a local farmer’s grow.”
I was like OMG. What have I done? So on Day 1, I had a talk with Kate about keeping her opinion out of news stories. And she was pissed. Of course she said there’s no way she could write unless it was the way she wanted to do, and she quit. The first of a dozen or so times (she never really meant it). So we compromised. What if you can have a column where you can channel all of your outrageousness? And you write the news stories straight.
We had a deal.
“Report from the Badlands” was born featuring a sultry photo of Kate and her single black glove. And the rest is weekly journalism history, and I that is not hyperbole. Kate won state press awards every time we entered her work: for environmental reporting, investigative reporting, spot news reporting, feature writing. And most importantly, column writing. “Report from The Badlands” was absolutely the most anticipated and read item in the paper every week. And it was hilarious, and poignant, and her stories about the mythical New Idrian town council, whose problems coincidentally mirrored whatever absurdity the Hollister City Council or Board of Supervisors were tackling, was the best local political satire anywhere. And she was so good at it because she was so impassioned about right and wrong, and a love for the environment and wildlife and humanity. All of the things that make Kate Kate. And I use the present tense “make,” because to me she is still here. Here in energy and life force and passion.
But I never for once thought journalism was Kate’s calling, as good as she was at it. Too much conformity. And also hurt feelings. Kate loved everyone, even her critics. But she was a cream puff and the criticism stung.
Kate was too big of a life force to be just one thing.
I was happy when a few years after The Pinnacle she took up art again, and I commissioned a tryptic of my three dogs. And it’s amazing. Dogs, wings, halos, fireworks, Orange the Cat, in brilliant aquas and greens. I’ve had pretty renown California artists at my house who have raved over Kate’s work, and one wanted to have a show. But for reasons I never understood, Kate felt unworthy of all of the praise of her work. She would rather heap praise on others and call herself a hack. When really she was the crazy genius among us. The one who I, for one, could only hope to be as clever with a phrase, or as unique in a perspective.
Kate’s beloved mom Jane always told me how happy she was that The Pinnacle and the issues she championed gave Kate purpose. She would thank me for that. But I always thanked her. I was the Pinnacle’s leader, but Kate was its heart and soul and personality.
We sure had a good run.
And Kate had a good run, too. Musician, artist, writer, activist, humorist, story teller, caretaker, survivor. I never imagined Kate as an old woman, but at the same time I thought Kate was invincible. Her passing has knocked all of us for a loop. I feel so sad. And I struggle wondering if there was something else I could have done to tell Katie M’Lady how much her Atilla the Honey loved and appreciated her, how much the world is better because she was in it.
I could talk today about Kate for 11 hours, as I did the other night with her dear Joseph Belli at my house as we watched the Sacramento River flow by. I feel like by talking she’s still in the present tense. And I feel like when I stop it will be goodbye.
And then I think how much Kate would have loved this, would have loved that the people she loved and who loved her back would gather for a Kate fest. Kate would want us to miss her, that’s for sure. But she would not want for us to be sad, especially cry. I think that she would see us and yell “stop yer bawling, *#@*@*!.” And then laugh at all of us.
So I’m going to work at not being sad because Kate died, and I’m go to practice finding joy in that she lived. And that I got to be a part of it.”