Reporter Ken Gangler Retires - Congratulations from the Beagle!!

The Beagle would like to share the following article written by Tom Gilchrist about a court reporter who is retiring after 39 years of service!! Congratulations, Ken, on a job well done.

I am sure that you will be missed by all of those you have freely shared your knowledge and wisdom.

~ The Beagle

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Tuscola County court reporter makes his exit after a 39-year career
Saturday, March 01, 2008

By Tom Gilchristtgilchrist@bc-times.com 894-9649
CARO - Kenneth A. Gangler may be a vanishing breed, but the documents he produced as Tuscola County's court reporter should last for a while.

''They're permanent - they'll last until the paper falls apart,'' said Gangler, 65, of Unionville, who retired Friday after a career spanning five decades in Tuscola County Circuit Court.
As he cleans out his office, Gangler is boxing up hundreds of pads of used stenotype - the official records of thousands of court proceedings he has documented as the county circuit court reporter.

Then-Gov. William Milliken appointed Gangler to the job in 1969. Since then, Gangler has been a fixture in the venerable courtroom, typing on his American-made shorthand machine behind a wooden desk he said ''came with the courthouse (when it opened) in 1932.''
Gangler, a Tuscola County native, said he knows ''a good portion'' of the parties who come to court. He said run-ins with the law seem to run in some families.
''There are times when we handled the grandpa, the dad and now we're working on the kids coming through our criminal justice system,'' Gangler said. ''You ask me 'How long have you been here?' ''Well, long enough to deal with three generations.''

Gangler admits there are days when he chuckles at what transpires before him. His job, however, is serious business. The stenotype pads he has placed in boxes will end up in a heated, locked storage building where the county will keep them for 15 years. ''I wrote the transcripts for a couple cases that ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court,'' Gangler said. ''They left here and were appealed, and made it to the ultimate end of the judicial chain.''

Caro lawyer Amy Grace Gierhart, 38, said she and county Prosecutor Mark E. Reene sometimes race to Gangler's office following a court matter to get Gangler's take on the proceeding.
''I bounce stuff off him,'' Gierhart said. ''I'll say 'What do you think about this?' and he'll say 'Oooh, I don't like that.'''
Gangler, in fact, is an honorary member of the Tuscola County Bar Association - the only non-lawyer in the group.

''He's probably the best attorney in Tuscola County, and he's not an attorney,'' Gierhart said. ''He probably has more courtroom experience than any lawyers.'' Gangler has worked in the courtroom with former Tuscola County circuit judges James P. Churchill, Norman A. Baguley and Martin E. Clements.

For 29 years, though, Gangler has worked for Circuit Judge Patrick R. Joslyn, known for his colorful language, spats with Tuscola County commissioners and apathy toward state legislators' sentencing guidelines.

In 2001, Joslyn sent police to a cafe near the Tuscola County Courthouse to round up prospective jurors after 10 county residents failed to show up for jury duty.
''(Joslyn) makes the work entertaining,'' Gangler said. ''When you consider some of the messes people get themselves in, it's just mindboggling.''

Advances in technology test a court reporter's mind. ''It's like going to school every day, with the expert witnesses, the doctors, and the lab analysis,'' Gangler said. ''The DNA evidence came along and there are a whole bunch of terms coming into court along with it.''
Technology ''is causing the court reporter to become a dying breed,'' Judge Joslyn said.

A medical-malpractice case, for example, requires a court reporter to have learned scientific terms in college. ''A lot of courts today don't have a stenographer any more,'' Joslyn said. ''They have a 'recorder,' which is someone with a high-school education who has taken a test and knows how to punch a button, and knows how to type. ''That's a hell of a lot different than a court stenographer who not only can repeat what I said, but when he certifies it, ensures the transcript will be accurate.''

Tuscola County Circuit Court officials will use substitute court reporters until the county hires a successor to Gangler. Joslyn described Gangler as ''a hard-working, very conscientious, very dedicated public servant'' who frequently came to work 30 to 45 minutes early.
In April 1969, Gangler began writing numbers, in a notebook, that correspond with stenotype pads containing records of proceedings he documented as Tuscola County Circuit Court reporter.
He still has the notebook, and said he has numbered about 5,250 stenotype pads - each referring to a day of court proceedings, or a multi-day trial, or other court event.
That may seem prolific for a man who might have kept working on the assembly line at a Buick Motor Co. plant in Flint, were it not for his older brother.

Donald ''Buff'' Gangler, also of Unionville and also a court reporter, had Kenneth Gangler all set up when the younger brother returned home from the U.S. Navy in 1962. ''I returned home one day from the Navy, and the next morning I reported to classes at the Northeastern School of Commerce on Madison Avenue in Bay City,'' Kenneth Gangler said.

After a year of college, Kenneth Gangler said he gave up on court reporting to work at the Buick plant. Eventually, he would quit that job to work at Bay City's Defoe Shipbuilding Co. and start attending court-reporting night classes at Saginaw Business Institute. Donald Gangler ''found a school for me again,'' Kenneth Gangler said. ''My brother was really the motivating factor in my career,'' he said.