Geiger nominates Florida reporters for Pulitzer

Former Beacon Journal reporter Pete Geiger, who retired to Penney Farms, Florida, has nominated Florida Times Union reporters Kate Howard Perry and Adam Kealoha Causey for a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s highest honor.

Anyone can submit a nomination by collecting the stories, writing the recommendation and paying the $50 nominating fee. Kent State’s School of Journalism, for example, often nominated BJ reporters for a Pulitzer. KSU-J nominated Pete  for his coverage of New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson’s fatal private jet crash at Akron-Canton Regional Airport in August 1979. Munson was from Canton.

Pete explains: “I beat the reporting team that the New York Times sent in simply because I could talk to the FAA investigators in their aviation language, so I could write how the crash happened. NYT pulled their team home and used our BJ copy.

“Ahh, but that’s back when our old State Desk was turning out real reporting” under the late, great Tasmanian devil of an editor Pat Englehart.

As for the Pulitzer nomination for the Times Union reporters, when the Times Union didn’t nominate itself, Pete says, “They did good work, so I just stepped in.”

The “good work” involved uncovering suspect and costly practices at Florida State College in Jacksonville, not to be confused with Florida State University in Tallahassee, by president’s executive staff member Donald Green, who had the same position at New Jersey's Essex County College.

That wasn’t all.

A Florida State College associate vice president was suspended after penning a letter to the governor and to state education officials about coverups and wasteful spending at the college.

Unqualified students got Pell grants and the federal government imposed a $515,000 finding on the college.

The college president charged more than $187,000 over two years to the college for telephone, Internet and a leased Cadillac.

The president also gave $16,000 of college money to local charities but in his name, which provided a tax benefit to him.

The president asked the board of trustees for $1.2 million in retirement, accumulated leave and on-going “consulting” fees, the title of “president emeritus” and an off-campus office. The board agreed, but later reduced the package to $1 million.

       

Further audits revealed additional mistakes that could cost the college $25 million.

One of the trustees resigned.

The vice president who also had held the New Jersey job was fired in Florida and sued the college for wrongful termination.

The board vowed to resist a federal review over alleged student record changes.

Says Pete: “The story is on-going and reporters Perry and Causey continue to follow it. Common wisdom in our profession, John, is that, for a Pulitzer Prize to happen, a significant event must occur in a newspaper’s purview and the newspaper must field the talent and bear the expense to cover it excellently. In my view, Perry and Causey have cleared the first two hurdles in the process. I wish them well.

“Meanwhile, we can hoist another brew to the memory of newspapering in Ohio that won a passel of Pulitzers" -- 4 for the BJ.

Pete and wife Sandy moved from Mongolia, after 13 years of teaching English in the Asian country beginning in 1994, to Penney Farms, a Christian retirement community 38 miles west of St. Augustine. They have been married 51 years. 

Pete often had inside knowledge of powerful religion leaders in the Akron area, which made his reporting far beyond the usual religion writer.