Oldest working reporter turns 92

Rohrer still covers golf and bowling for Record-Courier

Pershing Charles Rohrer was born in Cumberland, Md., on Nov. 11, 1918, the day the armistice was signed to end the fighting in World War I, so he was named after the U.S. commander, Gen. John J. Pershing.

At 92, he is listed as the oldest working reporter in Ohio. Persh retired from the Ravenna Record-Courier Jan. 1, 1989, but continues to cover golf and bowling for the Portage County newspaper.

His sports reporting career began with the Cumberland Daily News while he was still in high school. Rohrer says he kept bothering them until they gave him a job.

His other newspaper stops include the Morgantown, West Virginia Dominion News, Suffolk, Virginia News-Herald, Athens, Ohio Messenger, Plainfield, New Jersey Courier-News, Indianapolis Times, Defiance, Ohio Crescent-News and two stints at the Record-Courier. In 1985, Pershing was inducted into the United Press International's Sportswriters Hall of Fame.

Pershing married Janet Raymond of Cincinnati in 1951. She was a Kent State College of Education professor at the time of her 1980 death. They had a son, Thomas Paul Rohrer, in 1959. Pershing married again in 1990, to Mary Steele Solitro of Ravenna.

Photo shows Pershing Rohrer with grandfather, Lorenzo Dow Rohrer, in 1926

Click on the headline for the Record-Courier story on Pershing.

Some information in this article was obtained from a Rohrer family genealogy site,
http://www.the-rohrers.com/pdf/chap%2002.pdf;