To Our Readers: Dec. 20, 1993

The year was 1943 when Eugene Coyle, a 15-year-old Irish kid from the Bronx, joined TIME as a part-time copyboy. He liked the job, and he stayed. And stayed. Over the next 50 years, Gene became a smiling, unflappable presence in these corridors. His career as an art director and a production director spanned the revolution from lead type to the computer age, and his work has helped define the look and feel of the magazine. Most recently, as chief of makeup for TIME’s international editions, Gene has supervised the production of as many as a dozen different versions of the magazine, which are beamed by satellite each week to our 10 printing plants around the world. “It was like being born at the turn of the century and seeing the airplane and the motor car come of age,” says Gene, who retires this month after the longest stint at TIME of any current employee. “We were in the Dark Ages in the printing industry.”

After two Marine tours of duty, including eight months during the Korean War, Gene settled down to a career that has encompassed positions ranging from contributing editor for TIME’s Canadian edition to operations director for all of TIME. Along the way he has played the role of paterfamilias to generations of page designers and picture researchers under 11 managing editors.

Gene’s career has created family ties in other ways. He first spotted his wife Joan, who was then a member of our photo department, in an office elevator and instantly fell in love. But Gene’s second-date proposal was rebuffed with a terse, “You must be crazy. I don’t even know you.” Gene persevered anyway, and when Joan found herself stuck aboard an endlessly circling Boston-New York shuttle while Gene fretted in the airport below, a fellow passenger allowed as how any suitor devoted enough to endure the long wait deserved her hand. Gene got it. The couple’s two daughters, Nancy and Laura, have also worked at the magazine from time to time.

Even at home, Gene has seldom been far from the major events of the day. From the pardon of Richard Nixon to the raid on Entebbe to the crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, editors have summoned Gene to the office at all hours on weekends to help remake the magazine. “He’s been around so long and in so many different incarnations that Gene always knew how to get things done,” says Karsten Prager, the managing editor of TIME International. “He’s like a rock.” We’re glad our former copyboy decided to stay and stay.