When I attended my first meeting for all the city editors in our company, I was 25, smarter than anyone in the room and not afraid to let them know about it.

I noticed a distinguished older gentleman sitting quietly at the back of the room.

"Who's that old guy?" I asked someone.

"Charles E. Scripps," one of the Scripps corporate guys told me quickly, willfully and quietly. "He runs the company."

You would not have known it from Charles' quiet way. He listened to the whole conference and only, at the end when he was invited, did he speak. He told all these city editors that their job was to produce newspapers with local news stories that people wanted to read. And then he thanked us for coming.

Memorable advice

That was typical of Charles. He died Feb. 3 at the age of 86. But I hope and pray that his influence in the E.W. Scripps Co. stays with us forever. His grandfather founded the company, but died when Charles was 6. After his father died young as well, Charles was thrust into the leadership of this company when he was in his 20s. (And he was always a lot more humble than a certain publisher we all know.)

Over the years, I got to know him better, but not a lot better. I had many dinners with him. I sat with him at numerous conferences. Rarely did we have a conversation lasting more than a few sentences, but his advice was always memorable.

At one editors conference, I made the political faux pas of talking in a public session about how, in tough financial times, we were tempted to skip First Amendment fights because the legal bills were too expensive.

Two Scripps executives rushed me with index fingers pressed to their lips: "Shhhh." But Charles got the floor anyway and gave one of the longest speeches I ever heard from him.

Lesson in priorities

He said that as editors we should never let finances get in the way of upholding our duty to protect the First Amendment and the free flow of information to the public. Such matters had no price tag, in Charles' view. If we had to spend our last dime defending the First Amendment, we should do so.

The executives explained to me that this was a very important point to Charles and he would never stand for us censoring our fights for financial causes.

In another case, he did not even need to speak to influence us.

My boss sent us a short memo. He wrote that in a recent discussion with Charles about the role of innovation in Scripps, he wanted us to espouse a new philosophy: "Let no single person have the power to kill anyone else's new idea. Let's make it a rule that all new ideas must have more than one fair hearing."

The simplicity of this profound idea has stayed with me. How many great, creative ideas have been killed by a single boss?

But Scripps has long enjoyed a reputation for trying "crazy" ideas, such as the Home and Garden Television Network. Once derided as "a cable network about grass growing and paint drying," HGTV now reaches more than 80 million households.

Setting example

Perhaps the greatest example of Charles' legacy might not apply if you have the ability to read this column: Literacy.

Responding to Jonathan Kozol's terrific work on growing illiteracy in America, Charles spurred Scripps newspapers, TV stations and charitable foundation to attack at a local level.

In the past two decades, the foundation has given nearly $3.5 million to local agencies that simply teach people to read. In the realm of human dignity, there might be no single act that does more to raise one's self-esteem than learning to read.

The Council for the Advancement of Adult Literacy, in a 2005 report, noted the extensive involvement of Scripps employees in local literacy organizations.

"They serve on the boards of literacy organizations, provide assistance with management and fundraising, publicize literacy, encourage employees to volunteer as tutors and provide in-kind contributions. The value of this corporate involvement at the local level may well exceed the value of cash support," Patty Cottingham, vice president of the Scripps Howard Foundation, wrote in a note to me last week.

Serving local communities. Fighting for a free press. Fostering innovation. Battling illiteracy. I don't know if all of those fit on a tombstone, but they are fit for the legacy of a wonderful man.

— Tim Gallagher is publisher of The Star and can be reached through e-mail at tgallagher@VenturaCountyStar.com.