Seven Days would not exist without Rick Woods, an exemplary human and original Seven Dayzer who is eulogized in this week’s Life Lines section.
In August 1995, he was the brave soul who agreed to sell advertising into this weekly newspaper when cofounder Pamela Polston and I were still hatching the project. Although he was far from slick and not sold on capitalism, Rick made our case to the local businesses that have now supported us for three decades.
Even before there was a printed issue to show them, he convinced advertisers to buy in. Better yet, he got them to commit to a three-ads-for-the-price-of-two deal and collected the money in advance.
Short on time and startup capital, Pamela and I had one shot to create a free newspaper that we believed Vermonters would embrace. Rick made it so we could pay for the thing. Thanks to his powers of persuasion, the first issue was a solid 28 pages. Almost every copy disappeared, which gave us an instant “circulation” — that is, a loyal readership we could sell to advertisers.
Week after week for the first five years, Rick brought home the bacon, and Seven Days grew fat with ads and award-winning journalism. We celebrated milestones such as the first 40-pager, inaugural University of Vermont ads, interest from national brands. Before the paper had a track record, it was not an easy sell — especially to big companies and ad agencies that required data to justify their marketing decisions. I recall one local media buyer met with Rick and later called me to express his disapproval that our sales manager had arrived on a bicycle and left his pant clips on throughout.
A Jersey boy who loved Bruce Springsteen, Rick came to Vermont to escape the rat race. He was pretense-free, kind and honest. On one occasion, he famously talked a local business owner into shrinking the size of his ad. That genuineness endeared him to countless advertisers, including artist Katharine Montstream and her husband, Alan Dworshak.
“Little did we know that this warm and engaging ad guy would turn into a friendship that spanned 20 years,” Montstream said of Rick. “I bet this happened to a lot of people. Rick saw you, he listened, and he cared deeply about the people in his life, and you felt it in the most authentic way possible.”
Inside the office, Rick was a positive influence who helped establish our company’s fundamental values — of hard work, attention to detail, customer service and, Rick’s specialty, humanity. He trained our first batch of account executives, including longtime sales director Colby Roberts, for whom Rick was a mentor. He was genuinely interested in other people, a natural empath who was always ready to lend an ear.
In 2000, Rick left Seven Days because he wanted to go to Hawaii — a place he adored — for longer than a two-week vacation. He came back as general manager, a role he developed and inhabited until 2009. Six years later, he returned to handle HR. He stayed good friends with many of our employees, including the late Seven Days photographer Matthew Thorsen, who died of melanoma in 2019. Rick helped Matt through his illness — he was the rare guy who knew just what to say in times of trouble. Then in 2022, Rick was diagnosed with his own cancer. He went through multiple painful surgeries and treatments but bounced back, grateful and appreciative, each time.
He looked good at the January opening of an exhibit marking the seven-year anniversary of Thorsen’s death. But he had bad news: His cancer had returned. With good humor and not a trace of self-pity, he informed me that he didn’t expect to be alive for much longer. Rick would have known how to respond, but in truth, I didn’t.
He was 65, one month younger than me.
Ten days before his death, Rick attended the retirement party of our longtime colleague Michelle Brown, with whom he worked for more than a decade. He didn’t feel well that day, his wife, Alice, told me, but he made an effort nonetheless to show up and say goodbye to his friends at Seven Days.
Rick wrote his own obituary. Alice wrote one, too, that includes some important details he left out. I hope our collective words do him justice — an ongoing aim of this little newspaper to which he devoted so much of his life.
This article appears in April 22 • 2026.
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