FUN WAS HADE BY ALL AT BJ FAREWELL PARTY FOR DOUG LIVINGSTON

 

           GUEST OF HONOR DOUG LIVINGSTON WITH "DINOSAUR" JOHN OLESKY, BJ RETIREE FOR 27 YEARS

              BRUCE WINGES WITH JOHN OLESKY

              JOHN OLESKY WITH SURPRISE FIRST-MEETING WITH ANOTHER WVU GRAD

Drank in joy (with a Pepsi) of another BJ gathering, this one honoring departing Doug Livingston

 

At least 2 dozen showed up for reporter Doug Livingston’s farewell party from the BJ at the R.Shea Brewery on South Main Straight in downtown Akron, which shares the same Canal Place parking lot as the Brewery that hosts the monthly BJ Gatherings the 3^rd Thursday of every month, except for December. R.Shea much better atmosphere than BJ Gatherings brewery.

 

Doug is joining the Marshall Project after being at the BJ since 2011 and covering education, 2016 Presidential election and Akron city government. In 2014 Doug got first place in Ohio’s Best Journalism competition for his education and children’s issues reporting.

The nonprofit Marshall Project specializes in exposing inequities in the criminal justice system. A passion for a noble cause for Doug.

It was the first time I had met Doug, because I retired from the BJ 27 years ago, and Doug has been at the new BJ and the 44 E. Exchange Street historic building where I worked for 26 years.

 

But I did encounter familiar faces like:

 

Betty-Lynn Fisher, rushing off to somewhere when my lady friend Joan and I arrived. She was the BJ’s super consumer columnist. After 28 years she became USA Today’s consumer reporter and doesn’t have to leave her Ohio home to do it.

 

Yvonne Bruce, who picketed for the Guild alongside me to fight for, and get, better wages and other benefits which, as someone at the party said, “They tore up” after the BJ changed hands a zillion times, or so it seemed, from Knight Newspapers to Knight-Ridder to that Canadian outfit that stacked debt into “Beacon Publishing,” filed bankruptcy, and left employees in the lurch.

Yuvonne was at the BJ for 36 years, 10 more than joyous years there where I ran to work every day because it was such a treat to get paid to do good work with great people.

Yuvonne was Metro reporter, copy editor, assistant Features editor and edited for a year the Question of Color batch of articles that brought the BJ yet another Pulitzer (5 while I was there before the Plain Dealer got its first one).

 

Bruce Winges, named vice president and Editor at the BJ in 2007, replacing Mizell Stewart when Mizell became managing editor of the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press.

 

Reporter Marla Ridenour, honored by the Ohio Associated Press Managing Editors Awards as best sports feature writer as far back as 2020.

When I headed for the door with Joan I was greeted by a woman, like me, in WVU clothing.

 

We had never seen each other before, but it is like old home week when Mountaineers cross paths even if it’s the first time they’ve sighted each other. In my travels to 56 countries, where I always wore my WVU clothing, other Mountaineers walked up to me to chat and we had a "yee haw!" time.

 

The younger BJ people stood at and near the bar – because they’re younger and can handle not sitting down. Joan and I chose sitting at a booth adjacent to the drink-swallowers who chatted away like old friends – just as I did when I was at the BJ for 26 years when John Knight was in his corner office a few days after the Kentucky Derby every year, wintering at the Miami Herald on warm Miami Bay and summering in Akron.

 

I left before the party ended – and it didn’t look like it would for hours – because I wanted to watch my alma mater, WVU, play Pitt in basketball later Wednesday night.

 

As it turned out, immersing myself in a BJ gathering was much more fun than watching Pitt, our most-hated rival in WVU history, defeat the Mountaineers on TV!

It wasn't a Great Night To Be A Mountaineer, as the slogan goes, but it was a great night to be at a gathering of BJ folks again. Still classy after all these years (and I began at the BJ in 1969).