MICKEY PORTER MEMORIAL FEATURES TALES OF HIS LEGENDARY BJ DAYS

 

Porter memorial recalled Mickey’s glory days

Former BJ columnist and Features writer Bill O’Connor reports on the memorial event for the late legendary BJ columnist Mickey Porter at Bill’s Bath Township home:

There were a half-dozen or so Beacon people - Mike Needs and Kathy Fraze, Jane Snow, Karen Lefton, a couple of Mick's care givers (he was bedridden the last year or so), Mick's sons Mike and Ben Porter and grandchildren, a few people from Mick's neighborhood.

 

Mick's son Mike gave a little talk, and there were quite a few stories, all of them funny, about the long-ago days when Mick prowled the newsroom, resplendent in bright green, draw-string pants and a long-sleeve, yellow tee shirt with his watch worn over the sleeve.

 

Farkle was there. She's as bright and lively as she ever was.

 

Bill

 

As I’ve often said, Farkle put the sparkle in the BJ newsroom and at later reunions over the years. For newcombers that’s the nickname the Composing Room gave Sharon Shreve Lorentzen, married to Paul Lorentzen. Sharon also has writing skills, which she displayed in a reply to me years ago that was so eloquently and well written that I ran it verbatim.

 

In that epic, she wrote this about Mickey:

 

Mickey Porter - the best there. I worked for him for about 3 months, when he was at his peak. Funny, sardonic, so intelligent. He was ahead of his time. And a pretty good bowler, too.

 

 

She also was talented with a dulcimer and a bohdran, an Irish drum. And rode a Harley motorcycle trike to a passel of states in eastern America.

 

Sharon started the Family Council at Rockynol with a primary goal of helping seniors with dementia. She did that for 11 years. And is unofficial secretary for the Prostate Cancer Support & Education Group that meets every month. With her husband Paul, a retired architect, they were Mr. and Mrs. Claus year after year at local churches and restaurants.

 

Sharon put the sparkle in our lives, and of a multitude of othes, in so many ways. She began at the BJ in 1969, in the phone department, then came being a copy kid because she hoped would lead to a reporting job but wound up being an obits writer who went the home of the bereaved to get a photo of the recently dearly departed.

 

That was followed by doing rewrites from notes that reporters called in for articles. Later a weekly column about the happenings around town. She fetched the legendary De Nobil cigars for State Desk editor Pat Englehart and lunch for nationally renow newspaper group (NOT chain, he insisted) owner John Shively Knight, who had the corner office at 44 E. Exchange Street in the warmer months and at the Miami Herald with a view of the bay in the colder northern months.

 

Sharon worked the Sports Department phones which got REALLY busy when Mohammad Ali had a title fight.

 

A memorable phone call was photographer Don Rose calling from Kent State on May 4, 1970 and announcing “They’re shooting here!” The Ohio National Guard killed 4 students and wounded 9 others.

 

She went to John Knight’s home, by appointment, and got his permission to use the name Ladies of the Knight for the BJ women’s softball team. JSK liked the name so much he bought their uniforms. Unlike the Beacon Bombers, the men’s team, Ladies of the Knight actually won the championship in their third season in the league.   

 

Farkle has a resume with a LOT of sparkle!