A year later, it still hurts

A year ago today I lost someone I respect a lot.

Harry Liggett passed away Jan. 24, 2014.

I wasn’t alone in this feeling. 

Legendary Harry Liggett

Harry’s nephew, Eric Poston, who shows signs of continuing the family journalistic legacy while attending Kent State, wrote:

“A year has already passed since I lost my Great Uncle Harry. Sure will miss taking care of his yard and visiting with him this coming spring and summer. He was a great guy and a true inspiration to go into journalism.”

BJ newsroom retiree Tom Moore wrote:

"A great friend. He sat across the desk from me for 20 years."

BJ newsroom retiree Harry Liggett was the founder of the BJ Alums blog. He ran it the way he did his job at the BJ: Ferocious, determined, gruff but a damned good journalist. 

Harry and the late Pat Engelhart, State Desk editor while Harry and I were his assistant editors, taught me more about how to be a good newspaper editor than I had learned in all my previous years. And I was 38 when I came to the BJ, so I had 16 years of experience already.

Pat Englehart, who died in Florida in 1995, was the whirlwind commander; Harry came along and reorganized the debris. Frances B. Murphey, in her bib overalls, completed the legendary trio.

John S. Knight was the best newspaper owner I ever worked for, so I was quadruple-blessed.

The great love of Harry's life was Helen Smolak Liggett, daughter of Czech immigrants. The last time I visited Harry, he was calling out his name for her, "May! May!" and asking her to come and get him. Shortly after, she did.

Helen passed away June 26, 2010.

I know that nothing stays the same. But my admiration for Harry hasn’t changed with the passing of a year.

And Harry and Helen are together forever, in Akron’s Holy Cross Cemetery and wherever good people go after this life.