BJ Alums: September 2023

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

TIM SMITH PASSES AWAY

TIM SMITH AT MAINE MILITARY MUSEUM

TIM SMITH AT HIS KENT STATE RETIREMENT PARTY

Tim Smith passes away

Jim Carney posted this sad note today (Monday, Oct. 2) from Barbara Hipsman Spring:

James Carney

From Barb Hipsman:

Tim Smith passed away early this morning.

RIP Tim.

I enjoyed seeing, no matter how briefly, at Tim Smith post-funeral gathering, Art Krummel and wife Charlene (thanks for the hug, Charlene), Bill Hershey (who has his own Westminster Dog Show in his own home year after year), Roger Mezger and wife Ann Sheldon Mezger (thanks for the hug, Ann) and others my Swiss cheese mind has forgotten.

My Tallmadge condo co-occupant Joan Salisbury and I showed up before they left the reception, fortunately.

Gave my condolences to Tim's widow, Jane, and told her what a remarkable husband she had: BJ managing editor, lawyer, Kent State professor!

RIP, Tim! I'm sure you'll recognize a lot of BJ folks where you are.

See you there someday but, even with "91" coming up Nov. 5, I'm in no hurry.

Below is article posted September 26 about Tim’s health problems.

RIP, Tim. You sailed an impressive ship through life, from BJ managing editor to lawyer to Kent State professor.

I’ll post funeral arrangements when the become available.

Former Beacon Journal managing editor and Kent State professor Tim Smith has been hospitalized with unfixable epiglottis problem.

A feeding tube was inserted but eventually Cleveland Clinic doctors determined that he couldn’t process nutrition through the tube.

His daughter, Rachel Nelli, said “Dad starting having trouble with words” which made his family fear he had a stroke.

But that wasn’t it. The epiglottis is.

So Tim went back and forth from the hospital, the Heather Knoll care facility near Stow/Munroe Falls and his home at Sandy Lake.

Randy, Rachel, Bryan and their children visit Tim.

Rachel and Tim’s wife, Jane, hope to bring Tim home and the help of caregivers, known as home hospice.

Tim joined Kent State in 1986 after 19 years at the BJ. His other media stops were the Columbus Dispatch, the Painesville Telegraph and United Press International.

Tim has a bachelor’s degree and masters in journalism from Ohio State and a law degree from the University of Akron. In 1991, became a law clerk for now-retired Ohio Supreme Court Justice Craig Wright.

In June 1991 he was named acting director at Kent State, a post he held until June 1994, when he returned to the faculty and resumed his service as adviser to the Daily Kent Stater.

If you want to send a card, Tim's address is 4770 Sundown Trail, Ravenna, OH 44266.

36TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY FOR JIM CARNEY & KATIE BYARD

EARLY DAYS & LATER DAYS BOTH HAPPY ROMANTIC TIMES FOR KATIE BYARD AND JIM CARNEY

Jim Carney & Katie Byard enjoy 36^th wedding anniversary

Jim Carney, the nicest guy I’ve ever met, and Katie Byard are celebrating their 36^th wedding anniversary.

Jim posted:

“Three dozen years together. The assistant bureau chief and her assistant are forever grateful.

“Today Alfred, the bureau chief, takes his assistants on a field trip on some blue highways in Ohio to celebrate.

“We were married in a big room on the third floor of the Tavern of Richfield and served cocktail weenies and meatballs and cheese and crackers and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and beer and wine and soda pop to our guests.

“We went to New Orleans for our honeymoon.

“As Alfred McMoore used to say:

“Ain’t it a blessing?”

“Thank you, friends.”

Jim’s mother was a Rockynol nurse when it opened in 1966 and stayed till 1986. His dad spent the last 2 years of life there with Parkinson’s.

Kudos to Jim & Katie. There’s no couple more deserving.

Monday, September 25, 2023

SEND BETTY LIN-FISHER OFF TO USA TODAY AT AKRON FAREWELL!!!

Farewell party for Betty Lin-Fisher Wednesday, Oct. 4

BETTY ON LEFT WITH KATIE BYARD AT REVIVAL OF MONTHLY BJ GATHERINGS

Stephanie Lawrence is with Betty Lin-Fisher and Cheryl Powell-Fuller.

Hi, everyone. As many of you have heard, Betty Lin-Fisher is leaving the Beacon to work for USA Today. We will gather to bid Betty farewell at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Missing Falls. This is the same place where we've had gatherings on Thursday evenings recently. We figure we need a big place because everyone loves Betty!! Thanks and place let others know!!

At my request, Betty clarified some things:

Hi John. We are staying in Akron: it’s a fully remote job. It was nice to see you and to meet Joan.

And since it’s USA Today, the Beacon can still run my consumer stories, so Beacon readers won’t lose me entirely. I wrote a few more details in a comment to Thrity on a post in the Facebook group if you want to grab from there.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

SIX ATTEND REVIVAL OF BJ MONTHLY GATHERINGS

RICH HELDENFELS, JIM CARNEY, DAVE SCOTT, BETTY LIN-FISHER

BETTY LIN-FISHER, KATIE BYARD

JOHN OLESKY, JOAN SUTHERLAND

Monthly BJ gatherings are back! See you next time!

Decades after the monthly BJ gatherings at Papa Joe’s in the Merriman Valley ended the custom was revived Thursday, Sept. 21 at the Missing Falls Brewery, 540 S. Main Street in downtown Akron not far from the new BJ newsroom high up in the former Goodrich Rubber building, also on Main Street.

Chatting at the BJ gathering revival were Jim Carney and wife Katie Byard, retired reporters; Dave Scott, BJ regional issues reporter and deputy Business Editor before the April 2014 BJ buyouts exodus; Rich Heldenfels, TV critic when John Olesky was TV Editor at the 44 E. Exchange Street site of the BJ; Betty Lin-Fisher, BJ consumer reporter leaving for the same job at USA Today; and John’s lady friend Joan Salisbury who moved into his Tallmadge apartment from Glen Burnie, Maryland.

Dave Scott and wife Jane Gaab Scott live in Copley.

Rich still lives in Mogadore. Mark Dawidziak was my first TV critic, then David Bianculli, finally Rich during my 12 years in that position of my 26 years with the BJ, starting as assistant State Desk editor under Nobil cigar-smoking dynamo the late Pat Englehart, best editor I ever worked under in my 42-year newspaper career, and alongside the late Harry Liggett, also assistant State Desk editor who created this blog which I inherited when Harry turned it over to me before he passed away.

The BJ gatherings revival will be on the third Thursday of every month in the Missing Falls Brewery, 540 S. Main Street in Akron.

Kimberly Barth and Katie set up the BJ gathering revival but couldn’t make it because she had out-of-town family members visiting her.

Join the next BJ gathering at the Missing Falls Brewery on Thursday, Oct. 19. Let’s make it a must-do thing the way that the Papa Joe’s BJ gatherings were for decades when Tom Moore, Dave Boerner, Don Roese and I were regulars!

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

BOB CARPENTER HOME AFTER 6 DAYS IN HOSPITAL FOLLOWING HIS OPEN HEART SURGERY!!!!

BOB CARPENTER AND WIFE KAYE WITH FRIENDS ON A CRUISE

BOB CARPENTER, WIFE KAYE, JOHN OLESKY, PAULA TUCKER IN FLORIDA REUNION

BOB CARPENTER AND WIFE KAYE

BOB CARPENTER, "V" SIGN AND FAMILY PET

UPDATE:

Bob is HOME after 6 days in Fawcett Memory Hospital!

Bob reports:

"I am so humbled by the hundreds of prayer wishes, other comments and posts on Facebook. Still have some rest and recovery at home. FMH staff were awesome. THANK YOU all."

Open heart surgery for Bob Carpenter

Former WKNT radio news director Bob Carpenter will undergo open heart surgery Friday, Sept. 20, to deal with 98% blockage.

Carp posted:

“Dear Friends. I am scheduled for open heart surgery tomorrow morning at Fawcett Memorial Hospital. I've been under cardiology heart care the last 35 years.

“My recent treadmill test showed a problem. I had a heart cath at FMH and have a 98% blockage.

"Carp"

Let’s wish Carp and his wife Kaye of Punta Gorda, Florida, who were married 52 years ago in Ravenna, after Carp’s graduation from Kent State, a happy outcome. I enjoyed my encounters with them in my travels.

Carp and Kaye do a LOT of cruises.

Their son John lives in Los Angeles.

In 2020 Bob had kidney stone shock wave therapy that put him in the hospital for 4 days with internal bleeding!!!

Many of his newscasts and posters about the 1970 Ohio National Guard killings of 4 Kent State students and wounding of 9 others are in the Kent State archives about the unhappy event connected to Vietnam War protests. The “Four Dead in Ohio” outrage helped end America’s participation in the war, which solved nothing and left North Vietnam in charge of all of Vietnam. All those dead Americans for nothing.

Carp’s intelligence work for the Air Force translated a message about a bomb planted at the American embassy in Nicosia. The building was clear, the bomb went off, but no one was harmed in 1964.

Carp got a commendation in person from a general.

He is former executive director of the Punta Gorda Business Alliance and an award-winning public information officer with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office.

Carp relocated from Kent to Maui in the mid-70s to do radio and public relations before moving to Florida.

In 2022 Hurricane Ian downed 11 of the trees on their Punta Gorda property with didn’t ding Carp or Kaye.

For years Bob and wife Kaye personally delivered Christmas gifts to hundreds of challenged children in Beijing, China; Tokyo and Osaka, Japan; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Quito, Ecuador.