Ken Krause, former BJ sports editor who lives on Mystic Street in Medford, Massachussetts, revived the three stars have hovered over the BJ Tower for decades with a common heritage: All were born on Christmas Eve.

They were BJ sports editor Jim Schlemmer, born in 1899; BJ Sunday editor Ken Cole, born in 1920; and the incomparable Frances B. Murphey, born in 1922.

This is from a BJ blurb in December 24, 1963.

Depending on the metamorphis of the BJ, Fran wrote a Good Afternoon or Good Morning column that provided a haven for all those who weren’t politicians or businessmen. Fran wrote about Mr. and Mrs. Everybody.

For her co-workers, her highest compliment was "Go to Hell," followed by your name.

Ken Cole’s Sunday department crew included Dick McLinden, later on the copy desk; Larry Bloom; and Bill Bierman. McLinden said his job, when subbing for an absent Cole, was to “keep Lary Bloom and Bill Bierman from getting us into a lawsuit.”

Jim Schlemmer was the gruff guy keeping the sports department as sane as possible, not an easy task with people like Rich Zitrin and Dick Shippy around.

He also promoted the heck out of a Rubber Bowl for the University of Akron football team, and successfully, too, in cohorts with Akron Airport manager B.J. “Shorty” Fulton.

Ken Krause, one of seven siblings, is married to former BJ reporter Maura McEnaney, who works for Fidelity Investments, headquartered in Boston. Maura is the author of “Willard Garvey: An Epic Life.” Garvey built homes in the USA, South America and Asia for people with low incomes, is owner-operator of the “world’s largest” grain elevator, is the “largest private landowner in Nevada” and builder of Kansas’s tallest building—the Epic Center with its slanted copper roof.

Maura knew the Garvey family through friends and, after a half-decade of research and other prep work, put the book together. 

Syracuse graduate Maura’s more than three decades as a business writer and editor include being on the BJ team that won a Pulitzer Gold Medal for its “A Question of Color” about race relations in the Akron area. She left the BJ for Boston in 2000 and later worked for Bloomberg News.

Ken and Maura wound up in Medford because Maura has a lot of family in the Boston area.

Since leaving the BJ, Ken has been free-lancing for civic causes and charities, notably WalkBoston, a group that puts the pedestrian on a pedestal of protection as a non-profit pedestrian advocacy group. And anything to do with art and culture.