Doggone it, Stuart is a hero!

 

The Mad Hatter to the rescue!

Stuart Warner and wife Deb Van Tassel Warner were walking their dog, DeeDee, near their home in Phoenix, Arizona when they spotted a puppy swimming in the Western Canal.

The dog had plopped into the water 3 or 4 feet below its onshore takeoff spot. Keep in mind that Stu had his shoulder replacement surgery in July 2017.

Not a problem for Rescue Man!

Well, let Debbie, former BJ Features Editor and PD and Arizona editor, tell it:

“My hero, Stuart Warner! Nothing like starting the day off with some drama.

“On our morning walk with DeeDee, we spotted a creature swimming in the Western Canal. It turned out to be a puppy. No telling how long he had been in there.

“He came over to the bank when we saw him. It was a 3- to 4-foot drop from the bank into the water.

“We called the Humane Society but they took their sweet time getting there even though they were right around the corner from where we were.

“Stu finally got down on his belly, reached down as far as he could, grabbed the puppy by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out.”

Again, I remind you, Stu had shoulder replacement surgery eight months ago.

Debbie continues:

“Humane Society FINALLY arrived and brought his body temperature back up, found he was micro-chipped and were locating his owners.

“Oh, but Stu did drop his keys in the canal during the rescue.l. It turned out to be a puppy! No telling how long he’d been in there. He came over to the bank when he saw us, about a three-to-four foot drop. We called the Humane Society but they took their sweet time getting there even though they are right around the corner from where we were. Stu finally got down on his belly, reached down as far as he could, grabbed the pup by scruff of his neck and pulled him out. Humane Society FINALLY arrived and brought his body temp back up, found he was micro-chipped and were locating his owners. Oh, but Stu did drop his keys in the canal during the rescue! All’s well that ends well.WWWWWe

“All’s well that ends well.”

Just consider it friendly karma payback for the folks at the Quaker Hilton Hotel in Akron who gave Stu a second key when he walked outside his room and the door slammed shut behind him.

To the folks behind the reception desk it was just another guy dressed only in his tidy whity short who wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Maybe they didn’t recognized him without the ever-present hat, which I suspect was hiding a secret Stu didn’t want anyone to know.

Stu is marshaling the troops for the Arizona New Times these days, investigating the crap out of things that people in power would prefer to stay hidden.

Stu and Deb’s daughter, Denise Warner, is editorial director/digital at Billboard, which has been serving the music entertainment business since 1894.

Emilie Warner Clemmens and Amanda Warner Poynter are their other daughters. Emilie and Amanda live in Lexington, Kentucky, Stuart’s old haunt. The daughters are the parents of four of Stu and Deb’s grandchildren.

Stu and Deb have been married 35 years. They first met on Friday night, May 22, 1982 and moved in together the following Monday.  

They married on September 25, 1982.

Stuart came to the Beacon Journal after 10 years with Knight-Ridder's Lexington newspaper. He was at the BJ from 1979 until 1999. His last Warner’s Corner column was written in 1990 if you don’t count the 175^th BJ anniversary column that was a one-day affair.

 

He left the BJ for the PD. By the time he took a PD buyout in 2008, he was writing coach and projects editor, similar to his role at the BJ.

 

Stuart, after four years with the Arizona Republic, in January became editor-in-chief of the weekly Phoenix New Times in Arizona, which has gone online with some impressive investigative reporting.

He is in the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame and a former Case Western Reserve full-time lecturer.

 

Stuart and wife Debbie Van Tassel, the whip-cracking department chief during her BJ days, left Cleveland for Arizona in 2013.

 

New Jersey native and Seton Hall graduate Debbie, at the BJ till 1999, was assistant managing editor/features at the PD before going to the Arizona Republic, where she was laid off despite some spectacular success there because money is more valuable than people in today’s newspaper world.

Debbie had a hand in three Pulitzers, including at the BJ with the Goodyear greenmail saga and A Question of Color; and the Boeing 737 crash in Seattle while she was working for the paper in the rainy city.

Trivia note: Stuart went to Lafayette High School in Kentucky with Mike Wanchic, lead guitarist for the John Mellencamp band.

 Later, Debbie reported:
 

"The dog's owners were located. They live in Tucson. I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around how this puppy came to be swimming in a canal 120 miles away."