Marilyn McMahon: A Treasure

There was good reason why Marilyn McMahon survived for so many years at the Santa Barbara News-Press, even through Wendy McCaw’s tyrannical reign. She was the paper’s guardian of our community’s history.

When parades of new hands were brought in during the upheavals of the troubled McCaw era, it was Marilyn who kept the novice editors and writers on the straight and narrow. She told them who was a reliable source, who could be counted for information. She told them whose obituaries deserved attention in the news columns. She kept them from silly errors, such as dumping the beloved Mary Worth comic strip. Didn’t you know, she asked the expunging editor, the strip was a local favorite because it was Santa Barbara-based?

As the former wife of a local judge, Marilyn knew everyone of any significance in our town and, as the old cliché goes, knew where bodies were buried. Even the litigious Wendy realized it would be foolhardy to pink slip such an invaluable storehouse of local knowledge.