BJ Alums blog reported in January about former
Managing Editor Tim Smith’s June 1, 2012 retirement from the Kent State
University School of Communications faculty.
But there are other retirement tributes about Tim.
The tribute to Tim in the Kent State Jargon
magazine is inserted near the end of this article.
And then there’s Laura Kessel, managing editor of
the News-Herald in Willoughby, who wrote about her experiences with Tim, one of
“two journalism professors at Kent State who had the greatest impact on my
journalism career.”
Kessel continues:
“My first contact in (Kent State’s) Taylor Hall was Timothy
Smith, a professor of journalism and former managing editor at The Beacon Journal
in Akron. When I walked into his office for a counseling session a couple of
months before my transfer, he told me to have a seat.
“I noted right away there weren’t that many chairs. He pointed me to the church pew that sat along the wall near the door.
“On our drive home, my father said I’d be in good hands. He also said I should start praying. I’m still not sure what he meant.
“Smith became my adviser, and because he was about as gruff as anyone I’d ever met, he always got his way and no argument from me. I took the classes he suggested, and I didn’t challenge him when he forced me and my fellow students to come to our own decisions when we asked him, in his other role as the adviser for the college newspaper, for advice.
“Sure, he called on his experience at the Beacon Journal. But he never told us what to do. It wasn’t his job.
“Don’t get the idea he didn’t care. He did, more than we knew. He just knew that if he was going to mold us into the kind of journalist he was, he needed to start early.
“Yes, we made mistakes. But, we owned them and learned from them. And, that’s all he could ask.
“As I look back on the framework of my education over the years, it’s easy to see that I learned from the best.”
“I noted right away there weren’t that many chairs. He pointed me to the church pew that sat along the wall near the door.
“On our drive home, my father said I’d be in good hands. He also said I should start praying. I’m still not sure what he meant.
“Smith became my adviser, and because he was about as gruff as anyone I’d ever met, he always got his way and no argument from me. I took the classes he suggested, and I didn’t challenge him when he forced me and my fellow students to come to our own decisions when we asked him, in his other role as the adviser for the college newspaper, for advice.
“Sure, he called on his experience at the Beacon Journal. But he never told us what to do. It wasn’t his job.
“Don’t get the idea he didn’t care. He did, more than we knew. He just knew that if he was going to mold us into the kind of journalist he was, he needed to start early.
“Yes, we made mistakes. But, we owned them and learned from them. And, that’s all he could ask.
“As I look back on the framework of my education over the years, it’s easy to see that I learned from the best.”
= = = = = = = = =
Tim joined Kent State in 1986 after
working for 19 years for the Akron Beacon Journal. He has also worked for the
Columbus Dispatch, the Painesville Telegraph and United Press International.
He has a bachelor’s degree and master’s
in journalism from Ohio State University and a law degree from the University
of Akron.
Smith and his wife, Jane, a teacher of
gifted children, have three grown children. Jane (Andrews) Smith retired in
2010 after more than 20 years as a teacher at Litchfield Middle School. Randall
is a NASA scientist with Harvard Smithsonian Astro Physics Laboratory in
Cambridge, Mass. Daughter Rachel is a schoolteacher in Hilliard. Brian is
director of planning for the Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority and
has a law degree from the University of Akron.
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