Friday, February 09, 2018


Bob and Vickie Page, Paula Tucker, John Olesky


A reunion with Bob Page

Bob Page and John Olesky, who once worked on the BJ State Desk together in the 1970s, had a reunion in The Villages, Florida.

Bob and wife Vickie live in The Villages full-time. Paula Tucker, a reporter on the State Desk in the 1970s, owns a home in The Villages and Paula and John also share a home in Tallmadge.

Bob went to Green Valley, south of Tucson, Arizona, in January to help a church there train its leadership.

Pastor Bob came to the Live Oaks Community Church in The Villages, which has 120,000 senior citizens, in 2013 after 37 years in pastoral ministry in the Evangelical Free Church, most recently as senior pastor in Crystal Lake in the Chicago area.

He was Free Church district superintendent in Nebraska and Kansas and in the pastoral ministry in Nebraska, Fargo, North Dakota and Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Bob’s wife of 41 years, Linda, passed away in 2009.  Bob remarried in 2015, to Vickie Hubbard.

Bob has 3 children and 5 grandchildren in Nebraska, Fargo, North Dakota and Crystal Lake, Illinois.

The Kent State graduate worked his way from custodian of the Ashtabula newspaper to its assistant sports editor and, in 1968, the BJ, where his beats were Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls. He left Ol’ Blue Walls in 1973 to join the ministry.

Bob Downing, who kept BJ readers informed about how to enjoy our parks, recalls that “Bob was my first editor as a full-timer on the State Desk many years ago.”
Bob and John used to play golf in The Villages with the late BJ printer Hugh Downing, whose wife, Sharon, still lives there.

Bob’s church constructed a new building a year ago that includes a drive-in theater-like outdoor space for church-goers praying in their golf carts plus the usual indoor church.

If you want to contact Bob, call (847) 917-0551.

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