DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH THE BJ FEATURES DEPARTMENT

 

These talented, caring people are among the main reasons that I RAN to work at the BJ for 26 years, once I ended my sojourn with the magnificent whirling dervish, State Desk Editor Pat Englehart.

What a marvelous crew to cruising along in the same boat with!

And with John S. Knight as America’s greatest media owner ever and Ben Maidenburg as the greatest reclamation projects publisher ever (when I was fired at the Dayton Daily News for my union activitires after 13 years there, Ben proclaimed: “It was their fault!”), it was as if I had been swept into Heaven before my time!

Think about it.

The first day I walked into the BJ newsroom, when sexist thoughts were allowed, I looked around and my brain told me: “Joan Rice and Janis Froelich are the two hottest-looking women in this newsroom!

Turns out that Joan Rice’s brain was even more beautiful, that she was as fashionable as hell in her choice of clothing and a frequent and most helpful shoulder to lean and complain on when management went into harrumph mode.

Alas, Joan long ago got her reward in Heaven for putting up with me.

Joan and her husband, former Summit County Sheriff’s Deputy Capt. Larry Momchilov, passed away 12 days apart in 2016. They were married 36 years.

 

Joan’s identical twin, Marie, was a media person, too, in television. 

 

Michelle LeComte was the leader of this ship. Well, officially. But, as the lower photo in the montage shows, when Michelle was away on a cruise, we knew how to have fun without her, too. When Michele returned from her vacation, there was the lower photo on her desk with a note: “Having a great time. Wish you were here.”

Bob Dyer was named Ohio Columnist of the Year so often (he can tell you how many years; believe me) because he made wit, humor and excellent writing skills an unbeatable combination.

Bob and I spent nearly two decades eating Blue Room food together. Miraculously, it didn’t keep me from staying alive to be 88 years old. Maybe a nonagenarian rather than an octogenarian, too, if I’m lucky.

Liverpool, Ohio native Jane Snow, in my opinion, is the greatest food writer in BJ history. Ol’ Blue Walls has had some great food writers, including sassy Polly Paffilas, so being #1 in that crowd is like being the best queen ever for Great Britain.

Jane also was a formidable force for BJ management to deal with during negotiations with her sitting across the table in her “Oh, yeah! Try it!” posture.

Denny Gordon was more than an outstanding photographer. The guy rode his BICYCLE to Columbus and back routinely! Can imagine the guts and stamina that took?

And also as nice a person as you ever would want to meet.

Ah, Craig Wilson, chief librarian before becoming the wizard of Action Line during his 40 years at Ol’ Blue Walls. Like Englehart he ruffled feathers with his behavior and obsessions, but he was one helluva trainer for a long string of reporters, including Betsy Lammerding, also in these photos.

Craig irked the hell out of me, but I respected the hell out of him because he could find a needle in a haystack for a reader who didn’t know their way through the labyrinth of red tape in this world.

Columnist Jewell Cardwell and I had a connection that only the late Bill Canterbury and I did: Southern West Virginia.

Jewell’s uncle and aunt lived in the Cinderella, West Virginia coal camp adjacent to Williamson, on the Tug River border to Kentucky, where I met my wife, Monia Elizabeth Turkette Olesky, whose parents, grandparents and 2 or 3 aunts all resided in that camp. I called her my Mona Lisa, a play on her first and middle birth names, most of our 48 years of marriage and 2 years of courtship. She lies in Northlawn Memorial Gardens in Cuyahoga Falls under a double grave marker with “WV” below both of our names.

Jewell subbed for the legendary columnist Fran Murphey while Fran was on an 8-week journey in a variety of countries. On her final day as a stand-in for Fran, Jewell showed up in Jewell’s version of Fran’s traditional bib overalls.

As for Canterbury, he grew up in Wayne County, West Virginia, which I had to drive through from Williamson’s Mingo County to get to Huntington. He was a mild soul with a quiet sense of humor that was effective as someone doing it in a loud and guffawing way.

Betsy Lammerding was the mellow voice and personality near the joined-at-the-hips desk for Joan and me. Betsy was a home furnishings expert who went to North Carolina a lot for the dog and pony shows companies put on there.

Sarah Vradenburg had more brains than I did, too. Not a high bar, but impressive nevertheless.
BJ management figured that out and later put her on the BJ Editorial Board.

Mark Dawidziak was the best TV critic during my Television Editor reign. Mark told his fellow press tour friends that “I have the best editor than you” during the annual Los Angeles pilgrimages to meet, greet and interview the stars of the next season’s network TV series.

And gives Hal Holbrook a run for his money as a Mark Twain impersonator. Since Hal’s with Samuel Langhorne Clemmons, if they both went north instead of south after passing away, that’s a reunion I’d like to see and hear.

Michelle was an understanding and competent department chief who never bristled when she gave me advice and I replied, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

Michelle knew that, to lead best, sometimes it’s better to just let your crew row it that way.

Managing Editor Scott Bosley was good at that, too. At meetings, he would listen, take good elements from various underlings, add his expertise and go with it. Not like pompous boss who knows it all, but a leader not afraid to think maybe the privates have a better idea than he does.

Scott also told others about me saving, as Cathy Tierney relayed it to me, $300,000 by doing a simple thing. I went to every typewriter in the newsroom and checked the repair notes tucked in by those who came into the building to keep the machines clicking.

I said to myself, “Why pay for typewriter repair when we have a computer in front of everyone in the newsroom that can do the same job, with the help of a printer in the Newsroom, without paying typewriter repairmen?”

So Scott, at my suggestion, phased out nearly every typewriter, often handing them over to departments in other floors.

In my 16 years in Features, my department heads were Mike Needs, Doug Oplinger, Stuart Warner, Jim Nolan (the guy who never used a vowel in his memos) and Bob Jodon.

 

Michelle passed away in 2010 at the age of 58 after being at Ol’ Blue Walls in the 1990s and at Maryland newspapers for decades.

Doug never saw a John Deere cap he didn’t buy.

Ah, Elaine Guregian. Last, but not least, the amazing Armenian.  

She left her role as BJ culture reporter, and a fine, cultured one, too, to become assistant Northeast Ohio Medical University public relations and marketing director at the Rootstown facility that produced my grandson, Dr. Dylan Timberlake, who prefers pediatrics and is doing it in Columbus but will take his wife, Casey, and my grand-granddaughter Eliza (she got the front part of Elizabeth, my late wife’s middle name) to Wisconsin in July to do his good work near another Great Lakes.

Elaine’s writing skills has earned her Cleveland Press Club’s Excellence in Journalism award for her “Women in Surgery: A Rising Tide” article. Dr. Fauci’s gender doesn’t have a monopoly on medical geniuses, Elaine’s article reminds us.

Before NEO, Elaine was  Development Officer for Corporate and Foundation Relations with the Summa Foundation.

Elaine began at the BJ covering classical music and dance, then expanded her territory for Ol’ Blue Walls.

I've got a longing way down in my heart
For that old gang that has drifted apart
They were the best pals that I ever had
I never thought that I'd want them so bad
Gee but I'd give the world to see
That old gang of mine

I just made that up, right?

Sing along with Mitch Miller. Get it?
Composer Ray Henderson and lyricysts Billy Rose and Mort Dixon and vaudeville’s Van and Schenck can fill you if it you don’t.

Unless, a century later, they’ve forgotten.