By Charles Melton
Melton’s Musings
This time last week, I was down in Emhouse, Texas, placing a bouquet of sunflowers purchased from H.E.B. on my mother’s grave with my dad before Dad led the service for my great uncle, Big Ears, and being down there for the first time since my mother passed away on June 21, 2025, made me realize a few things.
The No. 1 thing I realized is just how much dramatic change, great loss and overall transition the last 12 months have thrown at me, and by and large, I’ve appeared to roll with it with the greatest of ease. I’ve managed to maintain my sense of humor and kept my cheeks dry from the floods of tears that the average person would have cried dealing with it all. Maybe that’s why Mom always called me her Rock and my brother, John, used AI to create a song called “Charlie the Hero.” I just don’t stop going when things are tough. If anything, I buckle down and try to do more.
From former federal employees who were displaced by the Deferred Retirement Program to my countless family members and friends who have needed my help over the past 12 months, I have always found ways to step up and deliver just enough to get them through their life challenges, even when there were mornings that I wasn’t sure I really wanted to get out of bed and face another day. I have maintained my reputation for being the one you call on when you need a Superman of your own. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve done it.
From the day I landed on the ground in Wichita and my buddy, Keith Brindle, brought me into Hutchinson for the first time, I have poured everything I had into making The Hutchinson Tribune the best weekly community newspaper it could possibly be. No matter what I’ve been asked to do, I’ve done my absolute best to do it well with the utmost fairness and accuracy, and I have actively reached out to community leaders to get to know them and build the connections and relationships necessary to be able to tell the stories of all the great people who make Hutchinson and Reno County such great places to live. All the while, I’m still finding time to help out my fellow former federal employees and help my family navigate the first year without Mom. But I’m tired.
When I met Larry Hatteberg a few months ago at Hutchinson Community College, it struck a chord deep within me. Larry has made his career telling the stories of ordinary Kansans doing extraordinary things and making positive impacts not just locally but across the globe. As he and I talked like two old journalists do, I kept thinking, “I want to do that. I want to be Hutch’s Hatteberg.” Now it’s time for me to hopefully do that, because that’s where my heart is, and that’s what I came here to do. Not that I haven’t enjoyed covering city council meetings and other things, but right now, I’m not able to do them at the level I expect of myself.
In the Army, we called that taking a knee: being self aware enough to be honest with yourself and your team that you need time off the front lines to heal and recover from wounds both visible and unseen. There’s no shame in that. It’s something we all should do. Therapy is a good thing, and I applaud everyone who invests in therapy and doing that work. It makes a difference. Help me be Hutch’s Hatteberg and either email me your story ideas or drop by the office, and let’s talk about them. I’d love to hear them and write them for you.
Charles Melton is the news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at charles@hutchtribune.com