Retired BJ reporter and sub radio guy Jim Carney and BJ reporter Katie Byard will celebrate their 29^th wedding anniversary on Thursday, September 29.

Son Will Carney wrote:

“Happy anniversary! I hope you and Katie Byard get to do something fun!”

Katie recalls that wedding day in 1987:

“It was a beautiful fall day in Richfield. Jim and I decided it would be fun to dress up like a couple from the 50s (we were ahead of the curve when it came to themed events!), make Patrick, Will and Michael dress up like little maitre d’s, enjoy the evening with a bunch of friends in the upper room of the Richfield Tavern, share too many cocktail weenies with the group, cut a cake from the fab Budd's Bakery in Akron (decorated with Mickey and Minnie Mouse) and say ‘I do.’ Other stuff from Common Book of Prayer, thank u very much.

"Miss those who were there and are no longer with us. Blessed for those still supporting us and new friends we have made along the way. Blessed to share my life with Jimmy.”

Then they zipped off to their New Orleans honeymoon.

Katie also explains how Jim and her got to the “I do” stage of life:

“We figure we owe it all to Tim Smith and Keith McKnight ... they hired us! In 1983, Keith took me to the old Iacomini's on Exchange Street; did his pleasant grumble and said something like we have to go through this rigamorole -- having you take a test etc ... but I'm pretty sure we're going to hire you.

“I was so grateful; I had no money, recession was on ... William Hershey (I worked for him in the Columbus bureau) put my rental car on his credit card -- I reimbursed him ... you couldn't pay cash for a rental car and those were before the days when it was easy to get a credit card while in college.”

Ah, Bill Hersey, the slave to Rover for all those years, and the State Desk reporter who had to hang up on me while covering roving United Mine Workers trying to shut down non-union mines in southeast Ohio because someone pulled a gun on him. Never a dull moment around Bill, particularly when Pat Englehart was part of the exciting mixture.

Patrick Carney, Will Carney and Michael Carney are Jim’s sons by former Cleveland Scene and BJ reporter Denise Grollmus. 

Patrick has a ton of Grammy Awards as part of the Black Keys band and lives in New York City with second wife Emily Ward;  Michael, Columbus College of Art and Design grad with a Grammy for his Black Keys album art, lives in Brooklyn with Joanna Grant; and Will supervises engineers for Amtrak out of St. Louis. 

Will moved from Peninsula where he was Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway superintendent. Railroading has been his passion and life since he was a teenager. 

The Carney boys are all Firestone High graduates, as is Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach.

The Carney boys' paternal grandparents are Wheeling, West Virginia native William "Bill" James Carney, who died in 2010, and Madge Slate Carney, a former Army nurse who passed away in 1995.

Jim's siblings are Patsy Carney Hughes, who died in 1997, and Ralph Carney (who lives in San Francisco with Deena Zacharin and is the father of Hedda Carney).