Dick brought snow from Ohio to South Carolina

Dick and wife Pat Latshaw

Dick Latshaw passes away

Former BJ printer Dick Latshaw passed away Thursday, March 1 in South Carolina.

Dick and wife Pat lived for two decades on Pawleys Island two blocks from Linda McElroy, widow of BJ business department retiree Harold McElroy.

Dick had liver cancer. He was one of the good guys in my life at the BJ, along with Terry Dray, also deceased, and Red Reeves. All printers.

All a great help to me when BJ management was trying to push me out the door after it broke up Pat Englehart’s State Desk empire where everyone there was more loyal to Pat than to management, or so management thought when it put Pat in an out-of-the-way office, Harry Liggett on makeup and me on the copy desk to split up the conglomerate.

When I replaced Harry on makeup and told the three printers about my situation with management, Terry said: “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

Boy, did they! When I was on makeup Saturday nights for the Sunday BJ, we ALWAYS went in early. When someone else subbed for me during my vacations, etc., the Sunday paper went in late.

After a while, Al Fitzpatrick and Bob Giles called me into the office and congratulated me on a fine job, saying “You were a round peg in a square hole” on the State Desk. When Pat became newsroom electronics coordinator, then riled a few people higher up because they couldn’t handle his manner despite his great talents, Al called me in again and said I was replacing Pat as electronics coordinator.

When I visited Terry in Florida, I thanked him personally for saving my ass.

Composing foreman Bob Griffin told me I was the best makeup editor in his tenure at the BJ, not knowing that it was Terry, Red and Dick who made me a success.

Dick thought he had escaped snow when he left Ohio. But in 2010 Pawleys Island got snow for the first time since 1989 … four inches worth.

CF Consolidated Freightways retiree Larry Ray Latshaw, Dick’s brother, predeceased him. Another brother, Ken Ronk, lives in Pennsylvania with wife Lucinda.

Their parents were Doris Denny Ronk and Ken Ronk. Doris passed away in 2014 at the age of 97. Ken predeceased Doris. Dick returned to Ohio to help his mom celebrate her 97^th birthday.

Retired printer Sid Sprague, who also lived near the Latshaws on Pawleys Island, moved to Loveland, Colorado with his new bride after his first wife died.

Sid was the first to move to Pawleys Island (from Cuyahoga Falls) around 1997 or 1998. Then Harold and Linda McElroy moved around 1999. Dick and Pat moved to Pawleys in 2000. They all lived on the same 3-blocks-long street.

RIP, Dick. Thanks for the memories … and the helping hand when I needed it the most.