Randy Smith passes away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1980s tenacious BJ reporter Randolph Smith passed away at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia. Randy and wife Virginia “Ginny” Smith, also a former BJ reporter who was with the Philadelphia Inquirer for 30 years before her 2015 retirement, lived in East Falls, near Philadelphia. He was 66.

BJ columnist Bob Dyer said it best:

“He was a tenacious reporter. Worked his butt off and kept pressing until he got answers.”

Charlene Nevada explained it even better:

“Wow. He was one hard-ass reporter. I had a friend, a social worker, who told me he was sitting on her front step one day when she refused to answer his calls about some story he was working on. He was a great reporter.”

Susan Gippin posted:

“Randy wrote several enterprise stories including one on the jewelry of hospitalized patients coming up missing in Cuyahoga Falls. No week was complete for energetic Randy without dancing at the Holiday Inn in Northern Summit County.”

Roger Mezger offered a more detailed account of Randy’s time at the BJ:

“Randy Smith’s first BJ byline appeared In August 1983 and he appears to have left the paper in March 1989. Looks like he did a lot of GA at first, while also covering the northern burbs and Cleveland/Cuyahoga County during that stretch where the BJ expanded its coverage area after the Press closed. He also seems to have done a lot of courts coverage and eventually was covering Canton and Stark County. By about June 1986 he had been named medical writer and that was his main role fir the rest of his time here. However, he also did a couple of series on terrorism while he was medical writer.

Randy’s obituary noted:

“Randy Smith had a joyful, infectious gusto for life. He and a friend biked once a week in Chester County for 30 years, even when the roads were a bit icy.”

 

He was a journalist turned Philadelphia marketing executive and athlete who married Ginny Wiegand. When Ginny returned home to Philadelphia Randy went with her.

 

Former Metro Editor Tim Smith posted that “Randy was one of the reporters we hired when the Philadelphia Bulletin folded. Great guy.”

 

Jane Snow posted:

“Randy Smith! This is a shock. He was medical writer under Ann Sheldon, I think. He and I wrote a couple of stories together. He was a very good reporter.”

Bob Downing posted:

“Randy was an intense reporter who would spend hours and hours sculpting stories late at night in an empty newsroom. His mission was to make it almost impossible for an editor to cut one of his stories. It was a devilish little game he played.”

Jim Carney posted:

“He made me some remarkable blues mix tapes when he and Ginny were in Akron. He sat near me for a while and was a very hard worker who put in long hours on projects he was working on.”