Let's hear it for Larry

Let’s hear it for Larry Froelich who is retiring at the end of this month. A retirement reception is set for Oct 28 for Larry at the Lexington (KY) News Leader. Froelich has worked for three Knight Ridder newspapers–the Beacon Journal, the Detroit Free Press and Lexington.

You can offer your congratulations by adding a comment at the end of this post.

Larry grew up on Walnut Street in Dover in Tuscarawas County, OH. He worked a couple of summers in advertising and news at the Dover Reporter. The editor was Harry Yockey, a great newspaperman and father of Nancy (Yockey) Bonar. When Larry graduated from college, Harry told him he could work for him until the military called. That lasted about 2-3 months. On the way back to Dover from a reporting job, Larry stopped at the draft board and found out he was on the top of the list to be drafted so he enlisted in a college option Officer Candidate School program and went to Fort Benning, GA

After graduating from OCS and Airborne, he remained at Benning and was PIO for The Student Brigade for about 5-6 months. Then he got a call from the Infantry School asking if he was interested in working in their Special Editing Section. Froelich wrote formal and personal letters and speeches for the two generals on base and was responsible for reviewing all documents for signature by either general that were headed for Third Army or the Pentagon. It was a pretty good gig because Froelich was holding down a slot that normally called for a major. But this was during the Vietnam buildup, and field officers were in even shorter supply than junior officers.

When he was approaching severance from the military, Harry Yockey told him he had a job if he wanted it. Froelich told Harry he would like to work at the Beacon. While he sat in the office, Yockey called Ben Maidenburg and the rest is history–Larry got a job at the Beacon.

Although his retirement will be on Oct 28, Larry will continue through Oct 31 and work a couple of days a week after a two-week break, he says, because the newsroom is so horribly short-handed: 25 positions empty or lost in the last five years

Larry’s oldest son and his family are coming from Detroit for the party.