ESTATE SALE HELD FOR CRAIG WILSON AND WIFE ELIZABETH IN BARBERTON

 

Estate sale for Craig Wilson, wife Elizabeth

 

There was an estate sale in Barberton of former BJ Action Line chief Craig Wilson’s and wife Elizabeth Wilson’s things on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 28.

 

Craig’s behavior ruffled some feathers at the BJ but the Mensa member for people with high IQs was amazing at training reporters and finding answers to readers’ inquiries.

 

Betsy Lammerding went from Craig’s Action Line to the BJ Features desk when I was Television Editor with a desk next to the amazing Joan Rice, a fashion model in looks and my best friend for a shoulder to complain on about management stupidity, as I saw it, from time to time. 

Jane Snow, Nancy Peacock, Betsy Lammerding, Charlene Nevada, Connie Bloom, Jim Dettling and Mickey Porter spent time in Action Lion under Craig's tutelage.

There’s a luminaria at Barberton’s Lake Anna dedicated to Craig, who passed away in 2007. Craig’s first wife, Ella Mae Leonard, who he met through a Lonely Hearts Club, passed away in 1992. Elizabeth was Craig’s second wife. When Craig passed she wrote:

 

“Maybe he stepped on your toes (at the BJ) but I can assure you Craig Wilson is the finest man I have ever met. He had a pure heart and genuine concern for his fellow man and his surroundings.” 

 

The late Connie Bloom, a reporter on the Features Desk when I was TV editor, wrote Craig’s obituary. 

 

The late assistant State Desk editor Harry Liggett, who chose me to inherit this blog Harry created, posted on here about Craig:

“He was probably best known as editor of the old Action Line, but his true craft was referencing,” with tons of envelopes filled with information about a person.

Charlene Nevada, trained by Craig in Action Line before becoming a Metro Desk reporter, told this tale:

“Once (publisher) Ben Maidenburg found an Action Line item in Knight’s Detroit newspaper and told Craig to use it. It had to do with Edgar Allan Poe getting kicked out of military school. Craig just smiled at Maidenburg and explained that Jim Dettling (another Craig trainee) had written that item first and the Free Press stole it from the Beacon.”

DAWIDZIAK UP FOR ANOTHER AWARD FOR HIS BOOK ON EDGAR ALLAN POE

 

                          MARK DAWIDZIAK WITH PHOTO OF EDGAR ALLAN POE IN BACKGROUND

Dawidziak nominated for Edgar Award

 

 

Mark Dawidziak, BJ entertainment critic under my “leadership” when I was Television Editor on the BJ Features desk,

has been nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America for his book, “A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe." Published by Macmillan Publishing – St. Martin’s Press.

 

Mark posted:

 

“Honored and a bit awed to be in the company of some terrific writers in the Best Biographical/Critical category”

 

Mark did some of his most eloquent writing in his email to me after My Mona Lisa, my wife and Cinderella (West Virginia) treasure, passed away in 2014”

 

“My point is the one you make so eloquently, and

that's to cherish the people you love for every second that you have

them.

 

“It's not a long ride for any of us, really, but I do know how lucky I am to have had a Sara in my life, just as I know how much you cherish Monia's presence in yours.

 

“Monia is indeed one remarkable woman. She is a mighty soul magnified

by the love of her husband, children and grandchildren.

 

“And I can't say I'm at all surprised by your praise of LaQuita (my daughter, an amazing teacher in Aurora Ohio schools till she retired). She is an Olesky, after all, part you and part Monia -- a superior being if

there ever was one.”

 

If I were choosing the Edgar Award winner it would be Mark – and my Mona Lisa awaiting me under a grave marker with both our names on it – would agree wholeheartedly with me.

 

Mark by word. Whether it’s Poe, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens our Dawidziak is top of the mark.

 

Mark also authored a book about “Columbo” with its star, Peter Falk, who phoned the BJ TV desk once when Mark was away, seeking to talk to Mark.

 

I told Falk that Mark was out of the office and that I would give him the message. Before Falk hung up, I said: “One more thing,” which of course is the besheveled dressed Columbo’s line in every episode before he nails the criminal.

 

Falk laughed heartily, even though’s he heard it a zillion times. Just proved again that he’s a good actor.

SUSAN GIPPIN JOINS LONG LINE OF BOOK AUTHORS WITH BJ TIES

 

SUSAN SMITH GIPPIN HOLDING HER BOOK, 'DYING THE WAY YOU DID'

Susan Gippin’s first book available Jan. 21

 

Former BJ political reporter Susan Smith Gippin, who migrated from Des Moines, Iowa to Akron, has published a book, “Dying the Way You Did.”

The book explores how her first husband’s death, even though they were divorced, affected her writings.

Susan’s book will be launched at 6 pm Sunday, Jan. 21. Sue will read part of her essay and will be available on Zoom.

The book is available from its publisher, Sidekick Press, or, a everything is, at Ama Amazon.com.

Sue is Susan Montgmery’s Special Times LLC owner, an estate sales company, and roved through Cleveland State, American University, Iowa State and Cleveland East High for her education.

Her parents were Phyllis Jean Montgomery Smith Gippin and Carmi Gippin.

Susan’s sister Katlin Smith Kokstis lives in  Vancouver, Washington.

Susan married attorney Bob Gippin who in 2008 became a Summit County Court of Common Pleas judge, a position he no longer holds, and served on the Akron Citizens’ Police Oversight Board.

Dartmouth University and Harvard Law School graduate Bob Gippin is a partner in the Goldman and Rosen law firm.

Susan and Bob have 4 children and 2 grandchildren.

 

Authors who graced the BJ include Regina Brett, Mark Dawidziak, Lisa Abraham, Rick Amon, Phil Trexler, romance novels author Jenna Ness once in BJ Advertising, Cinda Chima of BJ Classified.

And others I’ve overlooked or forgotten.

2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, POLLS SAY, WILL BE DETERMINED BY Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

 

Biden re-elected if he gets 35 of 79 tossup electoral college votes?

 

For the 2024 Presidential election, by applying the Electoral College votes to each state that has either President Biden or ex-President Trump in the lead, Trump would have 235 electoral votes to 226 for President Biden.

It takes 270 to become President.

So President Biden needs 35 of the remaining 79 votes, less than half of those still on the fence.

The tossup states are Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

 

Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia went for President Trump in 2020, BUT a switch of 77,000 combined votes in those 3 states would have meant a tie in the Electoral College which would have had the House of Representatives decide who become President.

154.6 million Americans voted but 77,000 people decided who would be President.

In the 2020 Presidential election, Biden got 51.31% of popular vote, Trump 46.85%, which does not determine who becomes President. Electoral votes do. Biden got 56.88% of the electoral votes, Trump 43.12% and was a bigger winner in electoral votes than in the popular vote.

Trump lost popular vote in 2016 AND 2020 but in 2016 became the 5^th President to sit in the Oval Office despite losing the popular vote because, under our Constitution, the Electoral College vote determines our Presidents.

Biden got 232 electoral votes, winning 25 states, D.C. & 1 Nebraska congressional district. Biden won 26 states (but didn’t need 9 with smaller votes he won), Trump 24.

Biden won 5 states that Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the main reason Biden is President today.

If Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Biden’s narrowest victories, had gone to Trump instead there would have been a 269-269 tie and would have sent the decision to the House of Representatives, where each state got 1 vote (Rhode Island would have as much power as California, unlike the general election itself) and there were enough Republican states that could have made Trump re-elected.

A switch of 77,000 votes in Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona would have given their delegates to Trump instead of Biden.

2020 ELECTORAL VOTES

For Biden

56 California

29 New York

20 Illinois

20 Pennsylvania

16 Georgia

16 Michigan

14 New Jersey

13 Virginia

12 Washington

11 Arizona

11 Massachusetts

10 Wisconsin

10 Maryland

10 Minnesota

9 Colorado

7 Connecticut

7 Oregon

(271 total, enough to win election)

6 Nevada

5 New Mexico

4 Rhode Island

4 Hawaii

4 New Hampshire

3 Vermont

3 Delaware

3 D.C.

3 Maine

1 Nebraska

 

For Trump

38 Texas

29 Florida

18 Ohio

15 North Carolina

11 Indiana

11 Tennessee

10 Missouri

9 South Dakota

9 Alabama

8 Kentucky

8 Louisiana

7 Oklahoma

6 Utah

6 Mississippi

6 Arkansas

6 Iowa

6 Kansas

5 West Virginia

4 Idaho

4 Nebraska

3 North Dakota

3 Alaska

3 Montana

3 Wyoming

1 Maine

2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Trump got 306 electoral votes even though he had fewer people voting for him than Hillary Clinton, who got only 232 electoral votes despite getting her name on more ballots.

 

That’s the way our Constitution works and has elected FIVE Presidents who lost the popular vote: John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

CATHY STRONG WINS SEASON BOWLING AWARD IN NEW ZEALAND

 

                  CATHY STRONG, MOST PROLIFIC BOWLER

Cathy Strong, BJ to Kiwi, scores a strike!

 

Former BJ State Desk reporter Cathy Strong is bowling them over in New Zealand. Well, at least in Wellington.

 

She won the Seatoun Bowling Club award for Most Prolific Player this season.

 

Cathy has been on the faculty of Zayed University in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Massey University in Wellington, oldest journalism school in Kiwi Kountry.

 

HERTZ FAMILY ENJOYS MONTH-LONG REUNION IN OHIO

 

             DAVE AND BETH ON WEDDING ANNIVERSARY AND ON THEIR WEDDING DAY

Month-long reunion for Hertz family 

Former BJ page layout and design editor and Copley School Board member Beth Thomas Hertz and husband and BJ night Metro editor, deputy business editor, region editor, business editor, metro editor, enterprise editor and then business editor again for about two decades enjoyed a month-long visit from daughter Alyssa Hertz.

They took Alyssa to the airport for a flight to Tampa where she will spend a few weeks at Norwegian headquarters before cruising in the Caribbean and, all summer, cruising Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Holland and England.

Beth reports: “Son Joshua went back to college so we are empty nesters again!”

I know the feeling. I’ve been fortunate in that only 2 of my grandchildren live outside Ohio, where I’ve lived for nearly 70 years – Dr. Dylan in Wisconsin and MonnieLynn in the Carolina. 3 children, 5 grandchildren, 5 of 7 great-grandchldren are within 30 miles of my Tallmadge home.

Among adults with at least one living parent or adult child, 74.8% have their nearest parent or adult child within 30 miles, and 35.5% hav all parents and adult children living that close. 

Beth was at the BJ in 1991-1995, then free-lance writer and managing editor of the Cleveland Clinic’s Communications Department at CC’s Akron General Hospital.

After the BJ and another Knight newspaper in Boca Raton, Florida, Dave became media relations vice president for Cleveland’s Dix & Eaton and, in 2018, became Cleveland Jewish Publication Company board chairman.

Cleveland Jewish News is a weekly created in 1964 that became Cleveland Jewish Publication Company in Beachwood.

 

Beth and Dave were involved in the 1994 BJ Pulitzer for its Question of Color series. Beth Angela Thomas and David Ralph Hertz were married in 1993 in the Akron Civic Theater before a large BJ contingent.

Beth was a “cute redhead copy editor,” Dave recalled, when they met at the BJ and began their office romance and their marriage.

They have two children, Alyssa Sandra Hertz and Joshua Daniel Hertz, who attended Copley-Fairlawn schools.

DAN ROESE EXPECTS TO BE OUT OF HOSPITAL IN A FEW DAYS!!!

 

           DAN ROESE IN ICU, BUT NOT FOR LONG!!!

Dan Roese hospital stay nearing end

 

Good news about BJ clerk Dan Roese:

 

From Dan himself:

 

“Still in hospital, but feeling much better. Have a couple more days, maybe.”

 

Dan is spending several days in ICU.

 

His father Is former photographer Don Roese. Don and I met at a New Zealand airport once when he was leaving a visit to former BJ reporter Cathy Strong and I just arrived for a visit to Cathy.

JOHN DERF BACKDERF ESCAPES JURY DUTY AGAIN . . . THANKS TO ATTENDING HIGH SCHOOL WITH JEFFREY DAHMER!!!

 

                       JOHN DERF BACKDERF

Surefire way to escape jury duty

 

Being Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school friend has its benefits.

 

It gets John Derf Backderf excused when he’s called and they find out. In 2010 and again in 2024.

 

Derf authored “My Friend Dahmer,” an international best-seller. His comic strip “The City” appeared in alternative newspapers (1990-2014).

 

He attended Eastview Junior High and Revere High School, where one of his classmates was future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. He attended and dropped out of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

He began as a political cartoonist for the Ohio State Lantern, then professionally at The Evening Times, the evening counterpart of The Palm Beach Post, in West Palm Beach, Florida. He worked as a staff cartoonist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the late 80s. In the mid-1990s Backderf was an artist at the BJ.

In 2006 he won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for cartooning.

 

Derf, whose cartoons gain national attention, lives in Cleveland, grew up in Richfield, began life in 1959.

 

Derf once gave gave former BJ reporter Sheryl Harris a memorable Christmas present: the first issue of Ms. Magazine!

TERENCE OLIVER AND GRETA OLIVER CELEBRATE 38 YEARS OF MARRIAGE

 

            TERENCE AND GRETA OLIVER, MARRIED FOR 38 YEARS

            TERENCE AND GRETA OLIVER & THEIR 4 CHILDREN DECADES AGO

38^th wedding anniversary for Terence Oliver

 

Terence Oliver, film producer and graphics genius at the BJ, the Plain Dealer and elsewhere, and wife Dr. Greta Oliver, celebrated their 38^th wedding anniversary.

 

Terence posted:

 

“Where did 38 years go? Happy Anniversary, as I would do it all over again, Fun times and great memories together, Babe. Thank God for His many blessings! Our scripture from day one:

 

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 KJV”

They have four children.

Greta also wrote  books “College Roadmaps,” tips for first-to,ecollege students and their families, and “Career Road Map,” about reaching career aspiratioms.

 

Teremce had a hand in Pulizer Prizes at the BJ (Question of Color) and Miami Herald (Hurricane Andrew series).

 

He’s on the North Carolina Journaiism School faculty after forays at MIT, University of Arizona, Duke and Tufts.

Terence has received 50 awards and probably needs to add a room to his house to hold them all.

 

He even designed a auto racing car!

 

He graduated from Michigan’s Ferris State, got his masters at Ohio University, was adjunct professor at Kent State (1992-94), rose to assistant managing editor during year years at the BJ (1996-2001) and was editorial artist at the Plain Dealer (1988-91).