When I attend the Hudson Art on the Green, I always look for former BJ chief artist Dennis Balogh (a title held at various times by Joe Grace, Bud Morris and Art Krummel).

Paula and I found him today wandering about other 36^th anniversary HAG artists although his tent (#80, in case you’re looking) already was open.

Dennis and I have a lot of Ol’ Blue Walls history together.

Dennis drew some of the most memorable covers for the Channels TV guide that I gave birth to in 1980, under the sprvsn of Jim Nolan (those who remember Nolan know that he never used vowels in his memos, so sprvsn stands for “supervision.”).

When Jim and I were preparing for the launch of Channels, on the Sunday of the Super Bowl (which we hoped in vain would be the Siper Bowl, for Browns QB Brian Sipe – damn Red Right 88!), Jim had me provide him with another page proof for every period or comma he inserted.

Hey, I didn’t complain, because the $10,000 in overtime that year (really!) paid for The Pool That Channels Built on Morrison Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls. My children and grandchildren and my late wife Monnie and I enjoyed Nolan’s obsessive behavior for more than two decades. Every supersplash cannonball into the pool was dedicated to Jm Nln.

Dennis and wife Patty have three children, graphic designer Lori in New York City and two sons.

In other years at the Hudson show Paula and I ran into retired BJ photographer Denny Gordon’s wife, Bonnie, and her sculptures; former BJ chief artist Art Krummel, with his paintings; and former Features Department editor and columnist Connie Bloom, with her fabric art (formerly know as quilt art) as Ohio’s fabric art guru. 

The National Association of Black Journalists, National Headliner Awards and Creativity Annual are among Balogh’s awards.

 

He did portaits of the past presidents of Samford University in Alabama that hang on the campus walls.

 

He has illustrated the top CEOs of the year for New York Stock Exchange Magazine.

But I take credit for Dennis getting his training wheels by doing Channels magazine cover illustrations for me during my days as television editor at Ol’ Blue Walls. Yeah, right. He already was a legend by that time.

Balogh went from Cooper School of Arts in Cleveland to the Cleveland Press to the Columbus Dispatch to the BJ. Today, he and his wife live in Broadview Heights – phone (440) 546-9223 or email baloghstudio@yahoo.com if you want to renew old times.

After 21 years at the BJ, starting in 1985, Balogh was part of a major exodus in 2006 when 335 years of experience walked out the door. The place has never been the same, with the staff shrinking from 250 to less than 60. Those who remain are just as dedicated, but there are too many ownership downsizing alligators encumbering their efforts.

In 2000 the Beacon art staff included Terence Oliver, John “Derf” Backderf, Art Krummel, Rick Steinhauser, Phil White, Dennis Earlenbaugh and Dennis Balogh. It used to be if you said, “Come here, Dennis,” when Dennis Haas also was there, a crowd would show up.

Now, they’re all enjoying a second life without the BJ, just as I have for 20 years. But our beautiful and fun memories will live with us till we move into the cemetery permanently.

They are painting, making fabric art history in Connie Bloom’s case, enduring earthquake tremors in New Zealand every week in Massey University Journalism faculty member Cathy Strong’s case or traveling to 55 countries and 44 states, in my case (with Paula Tucker, former State Desk reporter, at my side), when we’re not spending 4 to 6 months in Paula’s 2^nd home in The Villages, Florida, where we escape Ohio’s winters that overwhelm our Tallmadge home.

Dennis reports that Art Krummel and wife Charlene Nevada sold their retirement home in Garden City, South Carolina because the nasty weather in Ohio they were trying to escape followed them there. They bought the place in 2010.

That’s why Paula and I rotate between The Villages, where it’s not as nasty as Ohio’s snow and ice in the winter, and Tallmadge, where it’s not Devil’s Oven weather like The Villages in the summer.