Steve Mace drives in from Las Vegas

Former Beacon Journal printer Steve Mace drove 36 hours and 20 minutes non-stop from his Las Vegas home to Akron for the monthly BJ retirees lunch today at Papa Joe’s restaurant on Akron/Peninsula Road at Portage Trail Extension.

Well, Steve had help. There were seven family members in his van and five were drivers. Steve and his wife and adult children decided to drive from Vegas to visit old friends. They have four children and five grandchildren. 

Steve has lived in Vegas since 1978, after 16 years in the BJ Composing Room. He worked in construction – roads and streets, mostly – in and around Vegas. He left the never-ending casino construction to others.

Steve and newsroom retiree Tom Moore discussed Pacemakers. Both got their heart-assist equipment in 2006.

Steve played football for Springfield High School and the University of Akron and “softball forever,” as he put it. The University of Akron is where Steve met Marylouise Carroll, a St. Vincent High graduate in training to be a nurse. She married Steve instead and was a teacher at Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary in Cuyahoga Falls for a while.

Steve worked at the BJ with the late printer Gene McClellan, whose daughter, Tracy, also was at the lunch, still sorting out things since her Dad passed before she returns to New Mexico to rejoin her husband. 

On previous trips to Ohio, Steve had reunions with Gene McClellan and retired printer Mike Jewell and accounting retiree Mickey Dimeff at the Hiberian Club. 

Steve also talked on the phone with retired printer Sid Sprague, who moved to Loveland, Colorado after residing on Pawleys Island, South Carolina till Sid’s wife died and Sid remarried.

Steve’s brother, Jim, a Lakemore resident and General Tire retiree, passed in 2010.

Others at Papa Joe’s were retired printers Carl Nelson and Al Hunsicker and newsroom retiree John Olesky.

Steve said he checks the BJ Alums blog every day to keep up on his former co-workers. Some of the conversation today revolved around which BJ retirees were no longer among us. 

Too many, unfortunately.

BJ deaths in 2012 include Gene McClellan, March 19; retired printer Cal DeShong, July 25; Newsroom retiree Art Cullison, July 26; long-ago BJ reporter Dave Allbaugh, July 3; production equipment electrician Howard Wood, June 16; mailroom retiree Ron Edwards, May 8; and Adrienne Bosworth Chafetz, BJ Columbus bureau, March 6.

If you want to contact Steve or Marylouise, their email address is Microjo80@msn.com Their phone number is (702) 873-5071.
 

Their U.S. mail address is

Stephen H. Mace
6204 Obannon Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89146