This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Courage. Honesty. Kindness.

Those words define Terry Orme.

After starting at The Salt Lake Tribune as a "copy boy" in 1977, Terry quickly became the newspaper's youth movement in arts and entertainment. He began by writing pop music reviews, both concerts and album releases (on vinyl, of course). By 1979, he was The Tribune's first full-time film critic, getting face time with Robert Redford and covering the birth of what would become the Sundance Film Festival.

In the 1990s, he became an editor, and that put him front and center for the biggest Utah story in the past 50 years: the 2002 Winter Olympics. Like hosting the games, covering them begins years before the torch is ever lit. For Terry, Olympic coverage began before the Nagano Winter Games in 1998.

But it was later that year that the Olympic beat went thermonuclear. A leaked letter from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee triggered a massive bribery scandal that would consume the Olympic family here and worldwide for most the next year.

As lead editor on The Tribune's scandal reporting, Terry found himself competing with the world's best journalists on a story that had tentacles across the planet. It was the early days of internet news, and he would rise each morning at 5 to see what The New York Times, USA Today or the BBC was reporting.

He then would turn to sltrib.com for confirmation that Tribune reporters — Terry's team — had the bigger news outlets chasing our scoops, too. The Tribune didn't break the scandal story, but Terry made sure no one tracking it could ignore us. Uncovering free surgeries and phony internships, The Tribune delivered daily stories on just how far organizers had gone.

Shortly after the Salt Lake City Games, Terry was elevated to managing editor, and he defined the position for our newsroom. With Solomonic wisdom, Terry would listen to and lead a roomful of always smart but often difficult reporters in the daily scrum of big city journalism. Respect ensured, Terry never raised his voice to demand attention. He rarely was the first to speak, but he usually was the last because nothing more needed to be said.

It was in his most recent Tribune chapter that Terry was most tested, and it was there that his magnificent character became the paper's lifeline.

By 2013, The Tribune was on its fourth owner in 15 years after nearly a century under one owner. The most recent owner was a New York hedge fund that acquired it through a bankruptcy reorganization. Crunched for cash in a shrinking industry, the hedge fund made a deal that put The Tribune on a death march. Despite producing most of the advertising and subscription revenue, the owners sold almost half The Tribune's future profit stream to its print partner, the Deseret News.

The terms of that deal were supposed to remain secret, but Terry, new to his job as editor and publisher, knew that his readers deserved a full accounting. At great risk to his own career, he instructed his reporters to find the details and report them without regard to what the paper's owners — Terry's bosses — would think of those instructions. Once The Tribune reported its portion of newspaper profits had dropped to 30 percent, Utahns knew how precarious our fate was. A lawsuit was filed, federal antitrust lawyers took notice and eventually a path to Utah ownership through Paul Huntsman was found.

However enduring The Salt Lake Tribune may seem, it simply was not a certainty in those perilous days. That it did survive, that it now has an optimistic future, hinged on Terry Orme knowing what to do and then doing it.

Enjoy today's news and much more to come from The Tribune. And please take a moment to thank a man who did more to make it happen than you may ever know.