Thursday, November 12, 2015



This is one of retired BJ photographer Ott Gangl’s photos that’s famous without nudity, and brings back a lot of good memories.

The late Michelle LeComte, then head of the Features Department and later an editor in Maryland till her 2010 death, was on a cruise.

So her Features Department minions concocted this photo to let her know that WE also were having fun in “The Caribbean.”

Alas, the only one in that photo who still works at the Ol’ Blue Walls is muscle beach boy Bob Dyer, who is Ohio Columnist of the Year so often that they should just name the trophy for him.

Taking them as they are in the photo, from the left:

BACK ROW

Mark Dawidziak is applying his entertainment critic skills at the PD when he’s not in a library somewhere portraying Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe or Charles Dickens.

Andrea Louie, a BJ reporter who saw the 9/11 Twin Towers come down from her Brooklyn apartment. Andrew delivered flowers and artwork in the World Trade Center many a time. She also wrote books and at least as of 2011, and maybe still, executive director of the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York City.

Betty Lammerding, who was stuck with the technology overload of putting out the Channels TV guide when I went on vacation, also retired.

MIDDLE ROW

Joan Rice is in Rootstown with her policeman husband, Larry Momchilov.

Jewell Cardwell got out a while back after writing columns have helped nearly every large and small charity in Northeast Ohio.

Bob, still bob-bob-bobbing along at his BJ computer.

Connie Bloom went from Features editor/pet columnist to Ohio fabric art (quilt) guru and has a studio in downtown Akron.

Elaine Guregian, former BJ arts and culture critic, is assistant director of Public Relations and Marketing for Northeast Medical University, which includes my grandson Dylan among its graduates (he’s interning at Akron Children’s Hospital).

BOTTOM ROW

Jane Snow still is the best food writer in Ohio, maybe in America, but she does it in recipe books and on her web site when she isn’t sharing food with her husband at his Sushi restaurant in the Merriman Valley.

John Olesky, the cowboy with the weird sunglasses and the legs that later were described as “not bad for an old guy,” has been away from Ol’ Blue Walls for more than 19 years and has traveled with Paula Tucker, his former reporter on the BJ State Desk, to 53 countries and 43 states in the 11+ years they’ve been together.

Thanks for the memories, Ott. You give us all hope that we’ll be around for another of your famous photo shoots. With our clothes on, of course.

Ott’s photo and his commentary also appeared in this BJ Alums blog in 2005, when the late Harry Liggett will still running this journalistic real estate. And pops up from time to time on social media.

And it’s a reminder that, although this gang formed a damn good gaggle of journalists, they also knew how to enjoy life.

 

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