Catching up with . . . Bill Hershey

Bill and Marcia Hershey with Shadow, Sam and Sabuca

It took somewhere between one and two years of prodding (Paula calls it "stalking"), but I finally got former BJ staffer Bill Hershey to tell the story of his famous dog, Rover, and of his life before, during and after the BJ. Here's Bill's long-awaited email:

John-

This is a very belated response to your inquiry about Rover and other stuff.

Rover joined the Hersheys in Dayton in 1974. He showed up at a picnic near downtown Dayton and ended up at our house the next day after another person couldn't keep a dog at her house. We weren't supposed to keep pets either and ended up losing a security deposit and moving because of Rover.

He grew up with our kids, Laura, born in 1971, and Patrick, 1975. He moved with us to Akron, Columbus and finally Washington, D.C. where he died on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, 1990.

He was 17 1/2 years old and (another former BJ staffer) Jim Ricci, always in need of a column, wrote his obituary in the Detroit Free Press. Jim earlier had written a column about Rover, describing his coloring as resembling soiled underwear. That brought a torrent of angry responses from Free Press readers and also from my dad who wrote that Rover's color was not like soiled undewear but like a rug with a color that kept changing which caused people - including my dad - to trip over him.

There were/are pictures of Rover somewhere in the Beacon Journal morgue by himself and with our son Patrick. Fran Murphey took them. She shared a couch with Rover when she stayed with us overnight during a Red Sox-Cincinnati Reds' World Series game.

Rover was succeeded by Ike, who joined us in Washington, shortly after Rover died. We got Ike from a rescue place. He had been living with an older woman who couldn't keep a dog. He lived until May 23, 2006, and was about 16 when he died.

We currently have three dogs, known as the Golden Girls, for their senior status, not their coloring - Shadow, 12, black, part-Chow; Sam(antha), 11, vets will not say what breeds she encompasses, and Sambuca, 10, Siberian Husky. I've attached pictures of them with Marcia and me. We inherited Sambuca from our son Patrick and Sam from our daughter Laura. Shadow came from the Humane Society.

Marcia and I have lived in Columbus since 1999. We came here after I spent about two years doing crisis counseling/PR work in suburban Washington for a guy named Dan McGinn from Nitro, W. Va. I went to work for Dan after 13 years as Beacon Journal Washington reporter.

I was Columbus Bureau Chief for Dayton Daily News from 1999-Jan., 2010, when I officially "retired." Since then, I have been working on a contract for DDN Columbus Bureau that expires at the end of December. DDN has asked me to extend contract but I haven't decided what to do.

Marcia has been librarian at Columbus West High School since 1999 and has two more years until retirement. We are unlikely to leave Columbus because our daughter Laura lives in suburban Pickerington with her family - husband Adam Jacobs and two grandchildren - Austin, 8, Olivia, 3.

Our son Patrick is working in New Orleans in loss prevention for Hilton Hotels.

This Hot Mail account is a better way to reach me than DDN e-mail because I'm uncertain how much longer the DDN address will work - hershey_william@hotmail.com

I'm also sending a link that you might get a kick out of - C-SPAN did an interview with me in Dayton during the campaign on their campaign bus while it was in Dayton.

Here's the link to the C-SPAN video - I think it still works:

C-SPAN

Bill Hershey

Click on the headline to see photos of Bill, Marci and their dogs, a BJ reunion in Columbus, Bill & Marci in Bradenton, Florida with retired BJ rewrite guru Don Bandy, a BJ promo of under-30 staffers that included Bill.

Bill once lived on Dresden Ave. in Firestone Park. Bill also was "Mogadore Bureau Chief" under the late State Desk Editor Pat Englehart, who had Bill look under the political rug any time Pat thought something wasn't been done right in Pat's hometown.

And there's my favorite story about Bill Hershey:

It was a Saturday night and I was in charge as Assistant State Desk Editor. We had gotten reports that union coal miners were going from non-union mine to non-union mine and doing damage to persuade the owners and workers that they should be organized. Pat had assigned Bill to drive to southeast Ohio and cover the miners' activities.

I got a call from Bill, who was dictating a story to me. Abruptly, Bill said, "I need to call you back," and hung up. An hour or so later, Bill called again and explained.

A miner pulled a gun on Bill at the phone, demanding to know what Bill was doing. Bill's response, which I thought was the best example of thinking-on-your-feet that I had ever heard of for a reporter: "They're telling lies about you and I'm here to get the truth." The gun-toter's response: "Follow us."

Bill, of course, got the full story, as he always did.

Most important of all: RIP, Rover.