Thrity’s book among 20 for Choose to Read Ohio

Former BJ reporter Thrity Umrigar’s “The Story Hour” is among 20 books selected by the State Library of Ohio, Ohioana Library Association and Ohio Center for the Book amalgamation for the 2017 & 2018 Choose to Read Ohio booklist.

Thrity’s work is among Books for Adults. It is 6^th novel and 7^th book.

Thrity has been teaching creative writing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland since 2002.

Her previous novels are “Bombay Time” (2002), “The Space Between Us” (2007), “If Today be Sweet” (2008), “The Weight of Heaven” (2010) and “The World We Found” (2012). Her memoir is “First Darling of the Morning”  (2008).

Thrity left India at the age of 21 to attend Ohio State University.

Thrity began her reporting career with the Lorain Journal. Two years later, in 1987, she came to the BJ.

Other selections:

Books for Young Children

Curious Critters: Marine by David FitzSimmons.
The Farmer’s Away! Baa! Neigh! by Anne Vittur Kennedy.
Henry Finds His Word by Lindsay Ward.
I Wanna Go Home by David Catrow  (illustrator), written by Karen Kaufman Orloff.
Wind Flyers by Angela Johnson (author) & Loren Long (illustrator).

Books for Tweens/Middle Grades

Eliza Bing Is (Not) a Big Fat Quitter by Carmella Van Vleet.
Moonpenny Island by Tricia Springstubb, illustrated by Gilbert Ford.
The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall.
Winterfrost by Michelle Houts.
The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng, illustrated by Abigail Halpin.

Books for Teens

East by Edith Pattou.
Fat Angie by e. E. Charlton Trujillo.
There Will Be Bears by Ryan Gebhart.
The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer.
Voices from the March on Washington by J. Patrick Lewis & George Ella Lyon.

Books for Adults

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds by Julie Zickefoose.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng.
The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar.
Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, The Creators of Superman   by Brad Ricca.

 

Big money squashes free speech and free press like a bug … again.

This time a squashmeister from Monsanto, John Deere or DuPont did the nasty deed.

Rick Farmer, a fourth-generation Iowa cattle farmer outside Lorimor (population 360) in southwest Iowa’s Union County, had been drawing cartoons that appeared in Iowa's Farm News for 21 years.

Iowa farmer/ex-cartoonist Rick Friday

Until his cartoon pointed out that the three CEOs of those companies were paid more than 2,129 Iowa farmers. So the only editorial page cartoonist Farm News ever had got fired.

Let Rick, the latest David crushed into silence by a business Goliath, tell it:

“Again, I fall hard in the best interest of large corporations.

"I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to a cartoon that was published. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled its advertisement with the paper, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of It’s Friday cartoons after 21 years and more than 1,090 published cartoons to more than 24,000 households per week in 33 counties in Iowa.

“I did my research and only submitted the facts in my cartoon.

 

“That’s Okay. Hopefully, my children and grandchildren will see that this last cartoon published by Farm News out of Fort Dodge, Iowa will shine the light on how fragile our rights to free speech and free press really are in the country.”

Friday went from being voted class clown at his high school to cow-calf cattleman (100 herd) and cartoonist on a 550-acre farm he owns with wife Juanita.

Friday is the fourth generation to work his family's farm, which was established in 1894 with a herd of registered Hereford cattle.

Today, Friday and his wife, Juanita Friday, farm mostly in hay and pasture for their 100-head Angus breed near Lorimore.

Lorimor was re-named for J.S. Lorimor, who donated land to the railroad in the 1800s so that it could run its tracks through the town. Lorimor became a railroad water stop and Lorimor’s 2,000-acre bluegrass seed farm and the town prospered.

After high school graduation in 1978 Friday worked for a local elevator and operated a sow farrowing operation with his father. When the farm crisis hit in the 1980s Rick had to seek work elsewhere. He wound up at the Winnebago Industries Stitchcraft sewing operation in Lorimor as a janitor and truck driver in 1984. He was promoted in 1993 to plant manager and was with the company until the operation shut down in 2006.

He returned to farming with his parents.

Friday's first published cartoon was with a local newspaper in 1993. It was farm-related, of course.

In 1995 he began his career with Farm News – till Big Business got into a pissing match with the Little Guy.

It’s small consolation for our man Friday, but this Lao Tzu quote seems appropriate:

“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”

Euchre, anyone? Contact Kim

Kim Hone McMahan may be retired from the BJ, but she’s still hanging out with Ol’ Blue Walls escapees.

Kim has arranged a Beacon Journal Alumni Euchre Tournament for Saturday, May 14 at her house in Green.

Kim writes:

“Euchre tournament on Sat., May 14 at my house. Food at 6 p.m. with games beginning at 6:30. Address - 5357 Thursby Rd., Green.   “It's $5 to play with the winner and runner-up getting big bucks. If you can't play, come and hang out. We will have a movie or something playing in the theater room and there's always people sitting out. Bring what you want to drink.   “Please let me know soon how many will be with you.”   If you’re coming, to play euchre or to just kibbitz, go the the Beacon Journal Alumni Facebook page and let Kim know.   Kim, who replaced Jewell Cardwell as a BJ columnist in 2014, retired April 5.   Kim was a BJ staff writer for 26 years, but was a correspondent for nine years before that for the BJ, WHBC, a cable TV show and a little local newspaper at the same time.

 

Dawidziak narrates KSU’s ‘Unlucky’ movie

PD and former BJ entertainment critic Mark Dawidziak is the narrator for “Unlucky,” the Kent State Independent Films comedy that will premiere at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28 at Cartwright Hall.

The location shooting took place over 44 days last summer.

The red carpet event will begin at 7 p.m. with food and drinks, a photo booth and a “step and repeat” banner and walkway.

“Unlucky” is a romantic comedy of love at first sight.  Without learning her name, Sam faces the unluckiest of situations in his quest to reunite with his love before it’s too late.

The student-run production company has grown to more than 100 members with Kent State graduate student Buddy Candela as its president.

Buddy and Kent State alumnus Keegan Larwin, ’15, co-directed the film, and former Kent State student Nathan Mitchell wrote the script.

Traci Easley Williams, associate lecturer in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is the group’s faculty advisor.

Tickets for the “Unlucky” premiere are $12 at the door.

Gloria Irwin (front), Barb & Bob Springer (back)

Worldwide ‘neighborhood,’ right, Gloria?

Social media is a great informer.

Just ask Gloria Irwin, who wrote most of the articles about the breakup of Knight Ridder, but this time wrote about a reunion – 4,566 miles away in Hawaii!

Gloria explains:

“It was a magical dinner, thanks to Facebook. Friends Bob Springer and Barbara J. Hipsman Springer live 20 miles from us but are NEVER home.

“Through a recent post, we learned they came to Hawaii the day before we did. Katie Byard and Anne Reid: Eat your heart out.”

So the four of them got together for dinner in the Pacific, far from Ohio.

This reminds me of the time that Paula and I learned via Facebook that former BJ photographer Don Roese and wife Maryann would be visiting former State Desk reporter Cathy Strong in New Zealand.

We already had set up OUR trip to New Zealand and Australia, so we contacted Cathy and Don via emails. Don greeted us when we landed at the Auckland airport, where Don and Maryann were waiting to take off for their return to America after spending a week at Cathy’s beach home on the North Island.

Later, Cathy flew from her Wellington home to Auckland for a reunion, spending the day with us and showing us around the town.

It was a BJ reunion 8,458 miles from home, thanks to the social media.

But, then, Gloria and Bob, who retired from Kent State after Bob’s sojourn at Ol’ Blue Walls, know how that works.

Giffels covering GOP convention, but not for BJ

Former BJ columnist David Giffels will be one of four The Belt fellows covering the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

The Belt’s goal is to have writers who may pursue different angles than the traditional convention media.

Giffels also authors books on Akron, Devo and the rubber exodus from the city.

Other $1,000 grant fellows are Wheeling, West Virginia native Sarah Brumble, a writer/photographer equally at home in Africa or Cambridge; Anna Limontas-Salisbury, a City University of New York graduate who focuses on women and poverty; and Drew Philp, who’s working on a memoir of Detroit, where he built a home he purchased for $500 with his own hands.

 

2 Ohio Bob Evans closed

Bob Evans Farms closed restaurants in Toledo and Riverside, a Dayton suburb, last weekend. It’s among 27 stores closing, which Bob Evans says will bring $20 million when it sells the properties.

It will cost Bob Evans $8 million to close the stores.

Bob Evans is an Albany, Ohio company that has more than 500 restaurants in 18 states across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast U.S.

Albany is in the shadow of Athens and Ohio University and once was a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves. A school for African-Americans was established in Albany, which today has a population of 878.

With Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in the movies, all you needed was for someone to say “Let’s put on a show,” and – presto! – they put on a show.

With BJ folks, you just need someone to post “Let’s have a party!” and – presto! – there they were Saturday at the Nauti Vine Winery.

It was Ladies Only, though.

And the location is understandable, too, since it’s the Portage Lakes restaurant started by Erica Antoniotti, who must be related to Kathy Antoniotti, one of the BJ participants, and Joe Walthey.

The Ladies Lineup included Katie Nix and newsroom types Betsy Lammerding and Jewell Cardell, my fellow conspirators on the Features Desk till my 1996 retirement, Kathy Antoniotti, Gloria Irwin and Katie Byard, whose stepson is a Black Keys drummer, and Lynn Sherwin, deputy Features editor when she wasn’t winning money on TV’s “Jeopardy!”

Gloria left the BJ in 2006 to handle media relations for Timken.

For reporter Katie, it was a lot more fun than waiting in Europe for a plane that took forever and a day to pick them up when their other plane was turned back over the Atlantic, or having a tree fall and knocking out power to the house she shares with husband Jim Carney.

Betsy wrote consumer articles during my time. Jewell, of course, stepped into Fran Murphey’s giant bib overalls as a BJ columnist.

Kathy joked:

“John, I worked with you for four days the week you retired. I took over production of the daily television page and the movie listings in Features.

“The editors made me promise not to be off on Wednesdays when the movie listings had to be done. They hated doing that. And they weren't up for learning Quark to produce the TV page, either.

“I retired in September.

“Obviously, I wasn't all that memorable. Lol.”

Kathy, I can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone 20 years ago. And I was so overwhelmed by my impending retirement I probably wouldn’t have recognized JSK if Gene had chauffeured him up to my desk.

But I do remember that it took two people to do my job when I went on vacation, and unhappy faces before I left and when I returned. The Channels technology then, crude by today's standards, was something that only a crazy man could do. That made me a perfect fit.

Katie Byard explained the mystery woman next to her, who is not identified in the photo because the BJ folks I checked with couldn't provide a name for me:

“I brought a ringer: friend Deb Sanborn -- a former planner for Barberton City who is consulting with Cuyahoga Falls, just BTW.

“She and I had planned to do a nursery crawl of sorts Saturday, and she graciously let me twist her arm into meeting some lovely people and drinking wine slushies!”

After all, Katie, what are friends for? And you could hardly have had Jim show up in a dress instead.

It sounds to me like the Ladies of the Knight, as the BJ softball team was once called, had a great time without any of the guys around.

Have we become obsolete?

As my long-time Blue Room lunch companion Bob Dyer writes again and again: Just kidding.

More honors for Ed Suba

Ed Suba

BJ photographer Ed Suba Jr. was given the Robert S. Carson Award, the Ohio News Photographers Association’s highest honor, at the organization’s 65th annual Contest Judging and Seminar over the weekend.

Suba also won first place in the sports action category for his Browns photo entitled “Eye on the Ball” and an Award of Excellence in the pictorial category in the contest.

Suba, who retired after 33 years at Ol’ Blue Walls, has been ONPA Photographer of the Year three times. He also is a four-time winner of the ONPA Ohio Understanding Award for in-depth photojournalism, an ONPA Clip Photographer of the Year winner.

Suba served as president for the organization for nearly 20 years. He has retired as the ONPA president.

BJ’s Karen Schiely took second place in the feature category with her photo from the nursing home calendar shoot.

Co-worker Bob DeMay took second in the sports feature category for his photo of an Ohio State University cheerleader avoiding getting trampled by the team as players entered the field.

The paper took first place in Picture Usage in the large market category.

Carrie Cochran from the Cincinnati Enquirer (large market) and Jessica Phelps from the Newark Advocate (small market) were chosen Ohio News Photographers of the Year for 2015.

Scott Doelling of WBNS-TV in Columbus was named the 2015 ONPA Television Photographer of the Year.

From wedding day to 65th anniversary for Tom and Dot Moore

65^th wedding anniversary for Tom Moore

Goddammit, Tom and Dot Moore will celebrate their 65^th wedding anniversary on Thursday, April 14.

Explains BJ newsroom retiree Tom:

“John:

"We were married in the naval communications chapel in Washington, D.C.

Dot is from Minnesota. I was in the Air Force at Bolling Air Force Base

in D.C. -- editor of the base newspaper.

 

“Tom”  

After his retirement from Ol’ Blue Walls, Tom didn’t go off the rails. He went on them, as a conductor for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Dot often made treats for the passengers that she handed to Tom for special delivery.,

Since 2004, Tom heads for Fort Myers, Florida in October to publish a daily newspaper for the Roy Hobbs Baseball World Series for older players run by former BJ sports editor Tom Giffen, who took that show to Fort Myers 28 years ago. Hundreds of guys of various ages take part from all over the world.

Richmond, Virginia native Tom -- who was adopted by Spotswood and Virgina Moore in Tazewell, Virginia and once worked in Bluefield, West Virginia, where John S. Knight was born and lived for 3 years -- and wife Dot have four children, including three daughters who were copygirls at the BJ.

Amy Moore, Tom and Dot's youngest daughter; Caroline Jean Krack, their oldest daughter, who lives in Minnesota and retired as a teacher's aide; Katherine Ann Moore, who lives in Cuyahoga Falls, after retiring from the Environmental Protection Agency after 34 years with the government; and Tom's son, also named Tom, who with wife Sabrina Naylor are the parents of Amanda Jean.

Tom's 41-year newspaper career was on the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Zanesville News (now defunct), Lorain Journal, Columbus Citizen-Columbus Citizen Journal (both defunct) and the BJ. Plus four years part-time in the Ohio State Patrol headquarters in Columbus, editing the patrol's magazine,The Flying Wheel.

"I got my journalist 'degree' from the Air Force via GED and correspondence courses," Tom reports.

For those who don’t know the inside joke about the first word of this article, you could tell how things were going in the BJ Composing Room when Tom was makeup man. Seven Goddammits meant it was a really bad day. Most days had at least a few of the expletives.

If you want to congratulate Tom, his phone number is (330) 762-6669. If you’re too lazy to use your Smartphone, he has a Facebook page.

Ed Suba ready for action

Suba retiring from BJ

Ed Suba, Jr. who came from the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia’s #1 newspaper, for literally a fiery baptism in 1984, will retire from the BJ on Friday, April 29.

‎Paula Schleis‎ writes:

Ed Suba, Jr.

“Another farewell coming up folks. Photographer Ed Suba Jr. is retiring. Instead of the traditional newsroom cake and ceremony, photo will have an "open house" in its department from 2-5 p.m. on that day for anyone who would like to come in and wish Ed well. There will be some food and coffee and, of course, one of those legendary cards to sign.”

Award-winning 'Alice' photo

Ed was enjoying his first BJ Christmas party when he left to cover the Akron Recycle Energy System plant explosions on December 20, 1984.

Ed recalls:

“We had just started eating when one of our reporters heard about the explosion at the Akron Recycle Energy plant and called the newsroom with the news. The odd thing was that exactly one week prior, at the same exact time, I had been in the plant for a media tour. So my first thought when I heard about it was, man, I was just there.

“Everyone on the whole staff dropped their food and took off -- we all ran out to the site and went in different directions. We were in constant communication with the newsroom and each other by radio, but I remember spending the whole day out there.

“It was definitely an interesting introduction to the Beacon Journal.”

Two were killed and seven injured by the two explosions and fire. Ohio EPA tests confirmed that waste containing three volatile paint-related chemicals – xylene, toluene and methyl ethyl ketone – was dumped at the plant the day of the explosions.

Ed kept busy enough for 31 years to rack up a boatload of awards for his photos.

His most memorable picture was a simple face shot of homeless and mentally ill Alice smoking a cigarette outside a Merriman Road apartment. Eric Sandstom wrote the story.

Now Ed is homeless, too – well, as far as his Ol’ Blue Walls days are concerned.

Mike Ayers hanging out at Canal Park, between murals

Meet Murals Master Mike

Former BJ Advertising graphics designer Mike Ayers, who did that work for 27 years before Ol’ Blue Walls eliminated the entire marketing department in 2007, is the subject of an article in The Devil Strip, an Akron magazine, which dubs him Akron’s Master of Murals.

Mike, brother of another artistic guy, Chuck Ayers, also a former BJ artist, has become something of a murals artist. He did the Lock 4 mural of jazz greats outside the Civic Theatre.

Akron Rubber Ducks owner Ken Babby hired Ayers to do several interior murals at Canal Park, the minor league team’s baseball home.

He did his first mural while the Quaker Steak and Lube Restaurant in North Canton was being constructed.

Michael and Patricia Ayers have a daughter, Allison Michelle Ayers.

Check it out online by clicking on http://www.thedevilstrip.com/home/a-day-in-the-life-of-michael-ayers/

Mike's jazz mural at Lock 4, adjacent to Lock 3

Former Cleveland TV reporter Paul Rae passes away

Paul Rae, former WEWS-TV reporter and WKYC-TV Akron bureau chief, died Friday in Akron’s Hospice Care Center. Akron. He was 57.

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, he was the only news person Marvin and Betty Resnik, the parents of astronaut Judith Resnik, an Akron native, would talk to in detail was Paul.



Paul Rae

They trusted him.

Paul began his career on Toledo radio alongside retired BJ reporter Jim Carney in 1972.

Eventually, Paul founded and ran a video production company.

The Toledo native and Hiram College graduate was in radio, television and video production in Akron, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Albany, New York, Washington and Richmond, Virginia.

Paul’s obituary:

Paul E. Rae

Paul Rae passed away April 7, 2006 at age 57 with his loving family at his side.

Born July 11, 1948 in Toledo, Ohio, he was preceded in death by parents, Margaret (Campbell) and Edward James.

Jim Carney photo of former co-worker Rae

Paul was a communications major at Hiram College. He worked in radio, television, and video production in Toledo, Detroit, Albany, New York, Washington D.C., and Richmond, Va.

Paul was an Emmy award winning producer for WDHO-TV in Toledo, Ohio, before his position at WKYC-TV in Cleveland, then Channel 3 Akron Bureau Chief from 1985 to 1991.

Following his years in television he proudly owned his own video consulting and production company.

Paul is survived by wife, Victoria; daughter, Joanna Rae; step-son, Noel Frazer; Maria Lukinac; and four children, Riley, Kimble, and Sweetie.

Services will be held 11 a.m. TUESDAY at the Bokas Funeral Home Rose Hill Chapel, 3653 W. Market St., Fairlawn. Interment at Rose Hill Burial Park. Friends may call at the funeral home from 4 to 8 p.m. TODAY.

Should friends desire, donations may be made to the Summit County Humane Society, 4904 Quick Rd., Peninsula, 44264 or to a charity of ones choice. Tributes to the life of Paul may be made at www.mem.com .

BJ 3: John Olesky, Bob Page, Hugh Downing
Photo taken before 80s temperature, switch to shorts

Triumpant triumvirate

Every Thursday since January, retired BJ printer Hugh Downing lined up tee times for the threesome of Hugh, former State Desk reporter Bob Page and former BJ editor John Olesky at one of the 49 golf courses in The Villages, Florida.

Today was the farewell outing for the BJ 3 because John is heading back to Tallmadge, Ohio, after his son and grandson visit; Hugh has family visiting; and Bob is busy with his church’s activities where he is associate pastor.

In a fitting farewell, the three combined for the best threesome total of the year.

Hugh, whose putter was smoking hot, shot a 36. I think that’s his best 2016 score with the BJ 3.

Bob shot a 37. So did John, despite four 3-putt greens.

This will have to do till next winter in the funnest housing development in America where 119,000 people make every day a playday.

Bob’s church putting golf carts into plans

The Villages, Florida church where former State Desk reporter Bob Page is an associate pastor knows how to appeal to its audience.

Golfing associate pastor Bob Page

In a housing development of 119,000 people in mostly unincorporated areas, there are 50,000 golf carts.

So the new building for the Live Oaks Community Church, which just had its groundbreaking, will set aside a special area to attend services in golf carts. It will take till summer 2017 to complete the new worship structure and an adjacent facility for seniors who need assistance.

Bob and Lee Solomon are associate pastors under senior pastor Chris Houlk.

Bob, retired BJ printer Hugh Downing and one-time State Desk assistant editor John Olesky meet for a round of golf every Thursday.

Bob came to Live Oaks in January 2013 after 20 years at the Evangelical Free Church in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Several years after Bob’s first wife, Linda, passed away, he married Vicky.

Bob was Evangelical’s district superintendent in Kansas and Nebraska for five years.