Catching up with . . . Hugh Downing

By John Olesky (BJ 1969-96)

Despite two heart attacks and a stroke over the years that left his right hand “a little weak,” retired Beacon Journal printer Hugh Downing rarely travels because “you don’t want to leave” The Villages retirement community in Florida. That’s the city where there are 100,000 people and 40,000 golf carts and 90 miles of cart paths to drive on for groceries, restaurants, the mall, and, yes, to play golf, although Hugh said he’s down to only twice a week nowadays. “Sharon plays more,” Hugh said.

Oh, Hugh and wife Sharon – who grew up in Galion, Ohio – do drive one of their two cars north to visit their four sons, but their two golf carts provide most of their transportation. Son Chris Downing lives in Hudson. Mark, Ben and Jonathan reside in Toledo, Vienna, Virginia, and Erie, Pennsylvania. The four sons – with their wives’ help, of course – have given Hugh and Sharon seven grandchildren. Hugh and Sharon, who have been married 51 years, will be driving to Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia next month to “make the rounds” of their sons and their families.

“By the time we make the rounds of the children (all four sons and their wives and children), I’m pretty beat,” Hugh said.

Retired printer Carl Nelson, who has a father-in-law in The Villages, “stopped here,” Hugh said. “Here” is 20 miles south of Ocala and 45 miles northwest of Orlando with 38 golf courses -- 29 nine-hole layouts are free for residents -- and 32 adults-only neighborhood centers with pools. The carts use tunnels and one overpass where highways and golf courses overlap.

Hugh and Sharon have taken a few cruises, including to Hawaii and another off California, but with everything that The Villages offers, “you don’t want to leave,” Hugh said. Maybe living in Medina for 37 winters has something to do with that attitude. They have been in The Villages, where the median age is 66, for more than 10 years.

Hugh said he’s chatted with BJ retirees on the phone, but seen only Carl Nelson face-to-face.

Hugh and Sharon were reunited with my late wife Monnie and I more than a decade ago on Siesta Key, which is adjacent to Sarasota, Florida. We were in our usual February hangout, Sea Castle, and the Downings rented an apartment once owned by retired printer Bill Gorrell, whose two-building complex got a lot of BJ visitors over the decades.

Hugh recalls that the late retired printer Bob Peel and his wife stayed with Gorrell before Bill’s death. Many a poker game and a few drinks happened in Poor Bill’s complex. The BJ crowd even squeezed in some golf at Sarasota’s many courses.

Sea Castle was torn down several years ago to make way for another beachfront high-rise, this one owned by Marriott, so Paula and I – who had continued the Sea Castle stays in February to escape Northeast Ohio winters -- had to switch to a Siesta Key rental about a block away.

Hugh and Sharon have another reason to be happy. They were among the retired printers in the health care lawsuit against the Beacon Journal. A judge’s preliminary injunction restored their prescription co-pay benefits, made the BJ reimburse them for their extra prescription costs above the retirement-day co-pays and reinstated secondary insurance coverage, which usually pays the 20% of the costs that Medicare allows but doesn’t pay. Medicare pays the other 80%.

Only those printers named in the lawsuit got their $2 to $5 co-pay prescription benefits back and reimbursement for overpayments -- husband and wife Dave and Gina White, who live in Venice, Florida after decades of residing in Sarasota; Norm Mattern; Ray Wolfe; Ruth West; Bob Abbott; and three or four others whose names I don’t know yet.

Retired printers who did not join the lawsuit continue to pay hundreds of dollars more than those who signed up for the lawsuit.

I also have a health care lawsuit against the Beacon for changing my Guild retiree coverage long after I retired. That case has not been resolved.

If you want to contact Hugh and Sharon, their phone number is (352) 789-7481. Their email address is Hudown@TheVillages.net Their U.S. mail address is 17900 S.E. 87th Bourne Ave., The Villages, FL 32159.

To catch up on what's happened to other former BJ employees, click on Catching Up under Labels on the left side of this page.