Rhonda Humble was a force to be reckoned with.

She ran The Gardner News for almost 40 years; along with other local newspapers at a time the journalism field was dominated by men.

Humble recently retired from the publishing business earlier this year and a long, storied career as an award winning journalist.

Mark Taylor, a former reporter and editor for her for 20 years, said it wasn’t just Rhonda’s career that made her formidable but her passion for always working towards a cause.

“There was a time in the mid-1990s when Rhonda helped spearhead a mentoring program for youth in the Gardner Edgerton School District,” he said. “She assembled a committee of local community leaders to study the issue and come up with mentoring solutions for students who could benefit from having an additional adult role model.”

Taylor said the result was bringing Youthfriends (a metro-wide mentoring program) to Gardner Edgerton schools. Youthfriends paired adult volunteers from the community with students in need of an additional positive adult role model. “The program was very successful and helped many students in the school district for several years,” he said. “That was just Rhonda’s nature. She would see a need in the community and go about trying to fulfill it.”

Karin Brownlee, former Kansas Secretary of Labor, said Rhonda broke the mold in which many newspaper publishers might fit.

“She printed in her paper what she knew to be best for Gardner,” she said. “She was really invested in the community and gave her time to make Gardner a better place.”

Brownlee said Humble cares for those who had a need and would meet that need.

“I miss her already,” she said.

Chris Morrow, former Gardner Mayor, said Humble was many things.

“As a newspaper publisher she was dauntless,” he said. “As a friend she was fun and funny and compassionate. If you were a friend in need she was a friend indeed.”

Morrow said whether you were a friend or foe Humble would challenge you to do your best.

“She would do that gently when needed and unsparingly when that was required.”

Morrow said Humble was good to Gardner in ways that most folks wouldn’t realize and a huge booster of the community even if that meant being a critic of those in charge.

“She was also a repository of local knowledge and she was plugged into a network of old time Gardnerites, that between them all, knew all the history,” he said.

Morrow said Humble was a tremendous listener.

“And if you bothered to do a little listening yourself, she offered sage advice,” he said. Morrow said the first time he met Humble was at the old newspaper office by the railroad tracks.

“She instantly put me on the spot and made me uncomfortable,” he said. “She asked me a few pointed questions.”

Morrow said she also listened patiently, asked leading questions and open ended questions that got him talking more.

“She also offered friendly advice—not all of it solicited,” he said.

Morrow said they became fast friends since they met in 2010.

He would drop by the new office on Main Street every week to pick up a Wednesday paper, check in with employee Joan Dorsey and Rhonda’s son Brandon, torture former reporter Danedri Hebert and visit with the late Rick Poppitz.

“But mostly I would spend time with Rhonda,” he said. “We would more often than not be joined by Jerry Kellogg.”

Morrow said the three of them would also message online and go out for an occasionalal lunch.

“It was great to have such friends with whom could kibitz with on the regular,” he said. “Everyone should be so lucky. Rhonda will be missed, and sadly, Gardner, and all of her many loved ones, will not see the likes of her again.”

The Gardner News reached out to Jerry Kellogg and other friends of Rhonda Humble’s who said her passing was too painful, and they wished to keep their memories of their friend private for the time being. Danedri Herbert, Gardner News reporter from 2007 to 2015, said she would miss Humble’s wisdom and insight, and Humble was an old school journalist, who cared more about open government than anyone she has ever known. “She was relentless in the pursuit of transparency and truth,” Herbert said. “Gardner is a better place because of her service to the community. It is a little dimmer today because she isn’t here shining a light on it.” As for this reporter, I worked for Rhonda off and on for the last decade through my college friendship with Herbert.

Humble saved my life by reinvigorating my journalism passions more than she will ever know.

I looked up to her immensely, and she always cared about her friends and family with great empathy and understanding.

She had an ability and talent to invoke the Kansas Open Records Act that I always admired and was envious of.

It wasn’t until years after working for Humble that I realized we had been backyard fence neighbors in the 1980s in West Olathe when there was nothing but farm fields and prairie. Her, her son and I had a good long laugh about that.

Her voice lives on in my head with every story I write.

Humble will be deeply missed by the Gardner community.

On Monday, October 3 Todd Winters, mayor, paid a moment of silence at the city council meeting in her memory.

“She is a big part of Gardner history,” he said.