And the winner of the 1983 pool is?

The late Tom Ryan wrote about an unusual office pool in the May/June 1983 issue or Tower Topics. A "natural" cropped up at the Metro Desk in when it was learned that assistant metro editor Marilyn Marchione, staff writer Ancella Livers, and wives of staff writers Terry Oblander and John Kostrzewa were all pregnant.

The occasion called for a pool. Name the sex and order of delivery. If there's a tie, the date of delivery of the first will be the clincher.

Oblander and Livers picked boys for themselves, Kostrzewa predicted a girl at his house and Marchione didn't bet.

The Oblanders and Kostrzewas had boys and Ancella and Marilyn had girls.
Oblander is now at the Plain Dealer, Kostrzewa is business editor of the Providence Journal and Ancella lives with her husband Charles in Greensboro.

The blog tried in vain tp get information and photos on the all the babies who are now 22 years old, so we don’t know the order of birth or much more, but we did learn that Marilyn Marchione, now national AP medical writer, was the winner.

Here’s Marilyn’s reply to the BJ Retirees blog plea for information:

What a nice surprise to hear from you. I'm always happy when I hear of someone enjoying a long retirement! I'll probably work till I'm 90, with that daughter you asked about heading to medical school, most likely Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC.

Melissa is 22 now, born Sept. 27, 1983. Attached is a picture of the two of us (I was having a bad hair day) at the Washington Convention Center a few months ago where she presented a cancer research poster at a medical meeting I was covering for the AP. How cool is that! She also has a brother, 17-year-old Mike, who will be a senior this fall at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee.

Ernie and I both got new jobs out of the blue, within a few weeks of turning 50. I'm national medical writer for AP, a job that keeps me hopping but that I just love. I can't imagine better people to work for (OK, maybe Scott Bosley), or more interesting work. Ernie is photo editor for Birders World, a leading bird-watching magazine that's one of a dozen or so specialty/hobby publications of Kalmbach Publishing in suburban Milwaukee.

Please send my best to all at the Akron Canadian Bacon Journal, and use any of this note that you'd like on your blog or newsletter. I'm betting you have plenty of company in retirement soon.

You can write to Marilyn at mmarchione@ap.org
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