LEWISBURG W.Va. (WVDN) – For the past 12 years, Ray “Junior” Sizemore has kept a strict and consistent work routine.
On his workdays, he would go load up his car full of The West Virginia Daily News newspapers and hit the road on his paper route, and his customers along the way became not only familiar with him, but some became friends as well.
After his five-hour Alderson route this past Thursday, Feb. 26, Sizemore’s delivery job was concluded forever as his retirement announcement was officially set in stone.
Sizemore became a familiar face with the company over the last decade-plus, but although he won’t be bringing customers a copy of the WVDN (now renamed back to The Greenbrier Independent), he can still be seen delivering the Charleston Gazette throughout the area.
“Fifty years,” Sizemore said when asked how long he had been delivering the Gazette.
“Well, 48 years, I’m going to try to make that one to 50,” he said.
One thing Sizemore said he noticed that has changed the most over the last dozen or so years is the way the news is received.
“Most of the change is the amount of people that’s taking the paper now because the older people are really the only ones that read the paper. The younger generation doesn’t really read the paper now. They use Facebook and stuff,” he said.
The ability to mainly work individually and go to the beat of your own drum was a big reason that Sizemore enjoyed his job and stuck with it all these years.
“I didn’t have to listen to somebody tell me what to do all the time. I was on my own,” Sizemore laughed.
When discussing the challenges of an independent job like that, Sizemore went straight to the hazardous conditions that can pop up and make things a little more difficult.
“The weather,” he said.
“I’ve driven through snow that was up over the hood of a jeep, so I mean the winters now aren’t like they used to be. There was a lot of snow then and now it’s not really like that.”
When asked what the most rewarding part of his job was, Sizemore was quick to answer.
“Having time to be by myself. That was also the worst part of the job was having time to be by myself,” he said with a laugh.
“And I’ve met a lot of great people. I’ve had cancer four times, and a lot of good people have been really good to me.”
While retiring from a job can be rewarding in itself, it doesn’t come without just a little bit of sadness.
“Again, I’ll just miss the people. I’ll probably see a lot of them still. At Christmas some of them would give me 100 dollars so I’ll definitely miss that,” Sizemore said again with a big grin.
Now that delivering the WVDN is off his plate, the real work begins.
“I’ll go to work now. I have to retire from somewhere so I can go to work,” Sizemore joked.
“No, I’ve got a grandson that I take a lot. He does a lot of hunting and fishing, so I’m going to do that with him as long as I can because I don’t know how many years I’ve got left, or how many months I’ve got left,” Sizemore concluded.
