When Mary Straub began her career at The Red & Black, Jimmy Carter was president, Herschel Walker was in his freshman football season and the newly independent newspaper at which she was hired occupied what is now the Pita Pit.

“It was unusual,” recalled Straub, sitting in her corner office in her last week of work at the current Red & Black building on Baxter Street. “It was not necessarily a pleasant physical surrounding, but the atmosphere was a pretty special place to work.”

Despite the few windows, occasional flooding and fire damage, Straub looked back on her early years at the paper with affection. Before widespread computer use, there was a close sense of camaraderie among the staff, she said. Since those days of cramped offices and Underwood typewriters, The Red & Black has grown from four to five weekly publishing days and from an annual budget of $300,000 to $1.5 million. And Straub has been there for it all.

“She’s one of a handful of people who’ve had a big impact on The Red & Black,” said Harry Montevideo, the publisher of the paper and a long-time friend and coworker of Straub’s. “She should get a lot of the credit for the success of The Red & Black.”

For more than 28 years as office manager of The Red & Black, Straub enjoyed the “opportunity to meet new staff and see how they would grow,” she said. Many students who worked at the paper have since transitioned into the professional world and maintain contact with Straub.

“If you ask anyone here, they’ll say she’s the office mom,” said Erin Beasley, who began working with Straub in 2002 and will take over as office manager. “She’s a good friend to everyone that works here.”

The number of those who work at The Red & Black has also grown. As office manager, one of her main concerns was overseeing a payroll that grew from roughly 50 staff members in the early 1980s to around 120 today.

“It’s been a great joy to see her being such a champion, the center of it all, you might say,” said Elliott Brack, chairman and president of The Red & Black Publishing Company. “We just deeply appreciate Mary.”

Charles Russell, vice president of The Red & Black’s board of directors, worked with Straub after the paper became independent in 1980.

“Her contributions have been fundamental to The Red & Black’s early and long-term success,” he said.

One of their first tasks together was to organize financial records and collect payments from businesses that had not been paid in years.

“Without someone with Mary’s consistency, it would have been far, far more difficult than it was,” Russell said.

Sitting in a room with Straub, however, it is clear that it was not the payrolls and news stories that made her want to continue with The Red & Black. It was the people. From her stories about “some of the crazy kids” from the advertising department to the lasting friendships she shared with just about anyone who walked through The Red & Black doors, Straub truly spent her years at the paper as a mentor, as a friend and as the dedicated “office mom” of The Red & Black family.