For decades, from at least the 1990s through early 2022, people coming to The Alamance News office on West Elm Street would likely be greeted by JoAnn Boone. Her desk was in the front office behind the plate glass storefront, “in the window,” so to speak, such that many people referred to JoAnn simply as “the lady in the window.”
JoAnn had many duties and titles during her long tenure here, among them: receptionist, bookkeeper, ad salesman, circulation manager, production manager. We also gave her an unofficial title of “knower of all things,” inasmuch as she seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of The Alamance News, as well as local history (she was a lifelong resident of Burlington), and a host of other issues (cooking/baking, holiday traditions, and just general knowledge). We always said she could have been a contestant on Jeopardy or other quiz show-style programs.
JoAnn was very much “old school” with respect to work ethic. She worked hard from the minute she walked through the door and punched in until the minute she checked out.
She was so diligent at overseeing the operations of the newspaper that it allowed the current and previous publishers to slip away for a week or more of vacation once in a while, leaving her to oversee the news-paper’s operations in their absence.
The Covid pandemic brought a reduction in her time in the window inasmuch as it was clear she was in one of the most vulnerable categories of workers – we never knew exactly how old she was, but under almost any definition, she was “elderly.” We all knew she had a Christmas Day birthday, but she generally kept well concealed exactly which anniversary of her birth she was celebrating in any given year. In hindsight, it means she was in her early 80s when she stopped working here, well past eligibility for retirement.
During that pandemic period, it also became increasingly evident that she was having some memory issues, and that’s when she retired to her home in Burlington, under the watchful care of her son and daughter-in-law and their three daughters.
She died last week at age 86.
During at least 32 of the past 35 years, she was a mainstay of our newspaper’s operation. (She had an earlier tenure, as well, although no one could quite recall when it was, how long it had lasted, or why it was interrupted.)
In fact, she had been here longer than the “new” publisher, Tom Boney, Jr., and his wife arrived after buying the newspaper in 1990. We often lament that they “don’t make them like JoAnn” any more.
Like many others, we will miss the lady in the window.
