News-Record.com

KERNERSVILLE - The first book that John Staples remembers getting excited about was "Look Homeward, Angel" by Thomas Wolfe, a classic that he read with enthusiasm during his senior year at Kernersville High School in 1954.

The book stirred his imagination like no other. Perhaps it was the unvarnished honesty and creativity with which Wolfe wrote. Staples had his own brand of creative writing for the school paper - "creative imaginative stories," he called them. Growing up in the little town of Kernersville provided good fodder for putting interesting stories on paper.

It wasn't exactly a town for the likes of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn but was, nonetheless, a good place for a boy to remember adventures, real or imagined. Although Staples preferred creative writing, he also wrote some stories for the school paper about things that really happened.

Never did he dream - as much as he loved reading and creative writing - that writing would become a big part of his life.

Young Staples still had an adventuresome mind. Even armed with a degree in history from Duke University, he wasn't settled on a career. He spent three years as a communications officer in the Marines. Then he spent five years teaching history, English and Spanish at Oak Ridge Military Academy, which seemed to be a good mix of his interests in the military and academics.

Staples even thought of becoming a lawyer and went to law school for a year at UNC-Chapel Hill. He kissed that idea off, but undoubtedly the experience would help him in future ventures.

"I really wanted to be a novelist," he said.

Staples had never lost his zeal for creative writing. With his wife, Jane, a teacher, and their two children, Johnny and Kara, to support, it wasn't the right time for Staples to closet himself and write the next great novel.

So he took a job as an automobile claims adjuster. But then his life would be filled with writing for the next 30 years, 25 of them as editor of his hometown newspaper.

With the busy job of publishing a weekly newspaper, there still wasn't much time to spend on "imaginative" writing. But that job, along with Staples' knowledge of the town, established him as a solid writer and editor who also became heavily involved in community activities. He retired in 2002.

Today, he is an icon in his hometown - highly respected and one whom people turn to for advice or engaging conversations. He also made lasting friends in state newspaper circles while involved in the N.C. Press Association. He served several years as a member of the association's board of directors and as a director, vice president and president of the state's Community Press Association, representing nondaily newspapers.

As an editor, Staples had an impact on Kernersville, which has grown from a population of about 5,000 then to an estimated 20,000. It's still a town that he loves, even after leaving his day-to-day involvement with all that was happening that seemed important. At 71, he still keeps a busy schedule of community and church work.

One of his special loves is working for the Shepherd's Center, an involvement with helping senior citizens that was begun many years ago.

Little did he think as a young student hitching rides home on weekends with fellow Duke student Joe Goodman of Winston-Salem that newspaper writing, editing and management would become his lifetime job, he said. Goodman eventually became managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal.

Staples has the instincts of a good journalist - he has questions about many things and concluded long ago that things may not always be as they seem to be. That venturesome mind led him many years ago to Zen Buddhism studies in Charlotte, studies which he describes as self-awareness training.

"They teach you that anything is possible - step out and do it," he said. Even his shy daughter Kara, then 18, became involved in the studies. "She gained enough self-confidence that on her 18th birthday she went skydiving out of an airplane," Staples said.

The studies changed Staples' life forever, he said. "I had been a pessimist for 50 years, and I have been an optimist ever since," he said.

The training in Zen Buddhism also opened another door for the would-be novelist. Staples took the "big leap" the year after his retirement and published his first novel, "White Lies and Other Deceptions," based on people and events from his world of journalism. Staples followed that novel in 2005 with a 91-page, pocket-sized book called "Make Love, Drive Freeway Every Now and Zen."

He has two more books scheduled for publication in September, he said. One book is a collection of short stories and is as yet unnamed, he said.

His second fall production will be a novel called "Perfect Imperfection," and that's where Staples' imagination kicks in again. But he has buttressed his unique book with some philosophies common in the marketplace. Staples hasn't tried to mimic his hero, Wolfe, but has remained true to his early writing - whether real or imagined.

Staples' career in Kernersville has proved Wolfe was wrong about one thing. Wolfe also was author of "You Can't Go Home Again."

But then, John Staples never really left home. And his name will forever be engraved in the town's history - much of which he wrote.

Contact Bob Burchette at bburchette@triad.rr.com