Ferrell Friend

Featured Writer and Photographer of the Clay County Free Press, former owner, and former West Virginia Gazette featured photographer and writer

Preface reprinted from “Quicker the Sooner,” by Skip Johnson

   I’ve tried mightily, but without success, to remember when and where I first met Ferrell Friend. It must have been at The Charleston Gazette, and the year must have been 1953, but the moment escapes me. Then again, so does almost everything else. I’m not one of those people blessed with a good memory.

   In a sense, Ferrell and I arrived at The Gazette about the same time. My employment started prior to his, but was interrupted for two years when I was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. Historians haven’t decided what to call the Korean War, some say conflict, some say peace action, but I say war. The shrapnel whizzing around me told me that. Anyway, my return to the bastion of free speech at 210 Hale Street, The Gazette, coincided roughly with Ferrell’s joining the newspaper’s photographic staff out of Clay County.  

   To the extent that my limited memory permits, I recall a Ferrell Friend of that era who was exactly what he is today, which is to say irascible, fidgety, and possessing the attention span of a hummingbird. Those qualities, I think, made him a good news photographer. He didn’t take any guff from anybody, photo subjects included; he liked to be on the move, but nobody could leave the office quicker on an assignment, get the picture quicker, get back quicker, and get it processed and in the hands of the city editor or reporter quicker, and when it was over it was over. By the time the fat lady sang, Ferrell’s attention had long since moved to something else.  

   Over the years, Ferrell produced a sparkling array of what we shall call Friendisms. Friendisms are malapropisms, meaning one thing and saying something else. The master of malapropisms at The Gazette was the late publisher, Ned Chilton, with whom Ferrell always got along well. Not everybody did get along with Ned. I think it was a matter of similar personalities. Both were quick to say what the though, and I think they appreciated that quality in each other. L.T. Anderson, The Charleston Daily Mail Columnist in retirement and former Gazette columnist and city editor (later associated editor), kept a list of Chiltonisms. My favorite was Ned’s observation that somebody had “few peers and no equals.” Succeeding pages of this book go into some detail of the Friend-Chilton relationship.

   My choice Friendism was Ferrell’s summation of his philosophy in taking pictures for the newspaper and quickly getting them printed and out to the newsroom. “The Quicker the Sooner,” he always said. I think that pretty well sums up not only Ferrell’s approach to photography, but his lifestyle as well. The quicker the sooner!

   From a journalistic standpoint, Ferrell and I meshed well from the beginning. We both came from rural backgrounds, I from my beloved Braxton County and Ferrell from his equally beloved Clay County. Our roots were and are in the country. As a result, we were kindred souls in the kind of stories we liked to do. I always called them people stories, people acting out their everyday lives in a style and manner that is pure West Virginia. The most interesting people stories come, in my opinion and I think Ferrell’s, from the rural heartland of the state. The stories included in this book from among the many Ferrell has written over the years reflect his flair for seeking out and finding country folk whose comings and goings capture the essence of West Virginia.   

   I accompanied Ferrell, he is a photographer who is accompanied by reporters, and not vise versa, on many stories during our years at The Gazette, and one moment stands out. We were in the upper part of Canaan Valley doing a story on the flora and fauna of that biological treasure trove, specifically the stands of balsam fir found there that are more common to the Western United States. In his typical take-charge manner, Ferrell ordered our host and guide, I don’t remember his name, to wade into the cranberry bogs for a picture, with his firs in the background. The man obeyed without question, and permanently etched in the memory bank of my mind is the image of him standing knee-deep in the bog, perhaps even sinking. For all I know he may still be there. But Ferrell got the picture he wanted. He always did. “The Quicker the Sooner.”

   Through news photographer, he has literally rubbed shoulders with the great and the near-great, from presidents to generals to sports celebrities, in that sense, this account of his career is a name dropper’s delight. But it isn’t the real Ferrell Friend. The real one is back home in his native Ivydale, sitting on the porch watching the Elk River flow by and being as irascible and fidgety as ever.                         ---Skip Johnson