Retired BJ food writer Jane Snow, perhaps the best food columnist in BJ history, was inducted as an East Liverpool High School Distinguished Alumni on Saturday at the northeast Ohio school.

She was the only woman honored this year. There are 50 with that honor in school history.

The induction came at East Liverpool’s all-classes reunion.

Jane’s recipe books always sell well. “Jane Snow Cooks” is in its fifth printing. My daughter in Aurora uses Jane’s recipes religiously and with great success.

She publishes a weekly Internet newsletter on her janesnowtoday.com web site.

Her food columns have won multiple national awards.

Her husband, Tony Kawaguchi, is the sushi master/owner of Sushi Katsu restaurant in the Merriman Valley. I’ve enjoyed every visit there. Good stuff.

Tony was born in Sapporo, Japan, where he apprenticed for a sushi master before moving to the U.S. in 1982. He worked at five-star restaurants in places like Hawaii and New York City before coming to Akron at the request of Hibachi Japan, whose customers (Japanese executives from Bridgestone/Firestone) were looking for high-quality sushi here.

Jane was born in Liverpool, Ohio and came to Akron to work for the Beacon Journal. Her research for a sushi story brought her to Tony’s restaurant.

Coincidentally, Tony’s dad owned an American restaurant in Japan right outside the gate of the Air Force Base where Jane’s dad was stationed in World War II.

Former BJ managing editor Scott Bosley, who retired to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and former BJ sports columnist Tom Melody, who still lives in Akron, are in the Keyser (West Virginia) High School Hall of Fame.