Rick “Beerman” Armon, who left the BJ a second time to become the editor of the Wooster Daily Record and Ashland Times-Gazette in September, overseeing the news operations at both papers, will be the guest of honor at a beer bash (naturally) at 5 p.m. Friday at the Thirsty Dog pub, 587 Grant Street in Akron.

After moving from Rochester, New York and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle to their Copley home, Rick spent 1.5 years as a reporter at the BJ before being laid off.

He was hired briefly by the Associated Press in Columbus, then returned to the BJ as a business writer.

Toledo native Wendy Huss Armon, who married Rick in 2002, was on this merry-go-round, too.

Rick is a graduate of Cleveland St. Ignatius High School and St. Bonaventure University.

His early daily newspaper experience was in Columbiana County and Mansfield.

Rick is even more famous for his beer expertise and knowledge than he is for his award-winning reporting.

His “Ohio Breweries” book published by Stackpole Books of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania profiled big and little breweries all over Ohio. Somewhere north of 50 breweries at the time.

I wonder if Rick’s travels have taken him to the Coors brewing facility in Golden, Colorado, where I got SIX free samples of six different Coors beers, and to the Guiness Storehouse in Dublin, Ireland, where I also sampled Irish beer produced that day. So have more than 20 million others.

At my request, Rick provided more details about his career:

“I spent 15 (mostly) happy years at the Beacon Journal as a reporter doing almost every beat possible. Let's see, I was the Stark County reporter when I came, but then also over the years covered Summit County, city of Akron, Akron suburbs, higher education, database reporting, transportation and Census among other topics.

“I also wrote (and continue to write) the newspaper's beer blog. I always wanted to retire as the editor of a smaller community newspaper. I'm not nearing retirement but I love Wooster and Ashland and thought this might be my last shot at being a top editor.

“In addition to working at the Beacon, I've spent time at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Mansfield News Journal, Salem News, Lisbon Morning Journal and Hudson Hub-Times. There was a very short stint at the Associated Press in Columbus when I got laid off from the Beacon at one point.”