Carol Biliczy Levandoski

Carol Biliczky joins exodus from BJ

Carol Biliczky Levandoski is retiring from the BJ at the end of this month.

Carol says: “I’m looking forward to entering the next frontier.” Then she posted a smiley face.

When I wrote “You are going to LOVE retirement! I sure do,” she responded: 

“Glad to hear that you do. I'm looking forward to so many things that I've been

unable to do, from travel to hobbies. Excellent that you feel the same way.”

I emailed Carol after I saw former BJ political reporter Abe Zaidan’s Facebook post:

“Alas, ABJ's Biliczky is leaving.

“The word from the ABJ is that another top reporter ls leaving an already skeletal staff. Carol Beliczky is packing up after 24 years on the local staff plus two in the Columbus bureau and will be gone in two weeks.

“Her departure, folks, is a major blow to the paper. Her coverage of higher education as well as the Tressel epic at the University of Akron was at the highest level of professional journalism and one of the few bright spots of local reporting.

“The decision didn’t come easily. After extended consideration she applied for a buyout during the staff churn – and was turned down by the front office.

“A university town can’t afford to lose her, but it will too soon.”

Kent State and Medina High graduate Carol has won national awards for her education articles during her years at the BJ. She was higher education reporter and contributed to Sunday community news.

Her husband, Robert C. Levandoski, who died Sept. 8, 2008 at the age of 59, was a Medina novelist who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for "Fresh Eggs," a 2002 book written under the name C.R. Corwin. It was among the six books he wrote. Bob once was a Medina Gazette reporter, a public relations representative for Brunswick city schools and a trade magazine reporter. He also taught writing classes at the University of Akron.

Carol and Bob met at a book release event for his "Going to Chicago," published in 1997, and were married in 2003.

Carol has had to deal with the deaths of her sister, Joyce Biliczky, in 2003; her husband, Bob, in 2008; her father, Charles Biliczky, in 2010; and her mother, Rose Mary Biliczky, in 2012.

So BJ management gets rid of another body without paying a buyout fee of a year’s pay, as it did for Jewell Cardwell, Jim Carney, Bill Lilley, Dave Scott and Olga Reswow in May.

The steady forced march out the door has reduced a newsroom that once had more than 200 to 60 or fewer, getting Ol' Blue pretty close to being a haunted house.