by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com

Courier advertising director Mary Rose liked to joke with clients who declined to take an ad by responding with a time-honored quip: “You’re fired,” she would say to break the ice. Many times she would win that person over and they would end up buying an ad after all. That amiable persuasiveness was but one of her many strengths as the key ad revenue generator for the Courier.

Well, the time has come for the Courier to say goodbye to Mary, who will be retiring at the end of the month, capping a 25-year career at the paper.

She started in 1998 as the office manager and legal advertising representative. Former publisher Martin Weinberger saw her potential and promoted her to the advertising role in 2000. At first, she handled all of the advertising for businesses in the Village while Diane Esparcia worked with everyone else. Following Esparcia’s retirement a few years later, Rose took over all of the Courier’s clients.

Rose says her job has not changed that much over the years, even as the newspaper industry itself has undergone a dramatic transformation, but did mention transitioning to email communication and selling advertising on the Courier’s website as ways the job evolved.

The Courier’s longtime advertising director Mary Rose is retiring at the end of the month. Rose has worked at the paper for 25 years, 23 in her current sales position. Courier photo/Steven Felschundneff

The main change has been watching as clients she counted on for contract advertising retired and the people who were hired to replace them chose not to continue buying print advertising.

“Through it all I have enjoyed the job because I enjoy the people I work with,” Rose said. “And it will be sad not to do this any longer, but it will be good also. I am looking forward to spending time with my family.”

Rose was born in Hempstead, New York in August 1958. She lived in Levittown, New York until the early 1970s when her family moved to St. Cloud, Florida. Though still a high school student, she did not want to move to Florida, so she spent a few months in Huntington Beach before deciding to join her family in the Sunshine State. It must have been fate because she met her future husband Jeff at St. Cloud High School, from where they both graduated in 1976.

It didn’t take long before the Golden State called to the couple, who moved to Huntington Beach in 1979 before buying their first house in Ontario later that year. They moved to Mt. Baldy in 1987 and then finally bought a house in the Claremont Club area of Claremont in 1996.

In 1982 the couple’s only child, Aimee, was born at Montclair Hospital. She now lives in Arizona with her husband Andrew and their 5-year-old daughter Vivian.

Rose worked in accounting for a number of hotels before taking a job running the front office at a silk-screening company, followed by a stint at Saunders Towing.

In retirement Rose is moving to Peoria, Arizona, where the couple have already purchased a home. She plans to volunteer at a local food bank and with an animal rescue, and hopes to work part-time at a coffee bar where she can meet people in her new community.

Of course, the other big pull in Arizona is her family, including the couple’s only grandchild.

“I plan to spend more time with my daughter and granddaughter. I can’t believe she is already 5 and we have been away that long,” Rose said.

Eventually they plan to spend summers in Abingdon, Virginia, where they own property and the weather is much cooler than it is in Arizona.

She would also like to take a “really nice vacation” to celebrate her retirement, possibly a cruise up the Columbia and Snake rivers following the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. She would also like to take a road trip through the national parks of the southwest.

When Rose leaves Claremont in a month or so, she will also bring a longtime companion along to Arizona: her 1968 Ford Mustang. She has owned the maroon sports car with its V8 motor since 1973 and it now has more than 250,000 miles on its odometer. Although it’s currently registered as non-operational, the car still runs, and the plan is to have it painted and get it back on road.

“It’s been great,” Rose said about her 25 years at the paper. “I have really enjoyed working at the Courier and working with the people of Claremont. And I will miss it.”