Ken Krause (far left) with St. V-M classmates Leo Walter III, Jim Bennett, Jim Roetzel, Paul Longville

St. V-M Class reunion for Ken Krause

Ken Krause, former BJ sports editor who lives on Mystic Street in Medford, Massachussetts, had a class reunion Saturday, April 18 at the 29^th annual Showcase, the biggest annual fundraiser for St. Vincent-St. Mary, in the school’s LeBron James Arena.

Ken is in the photo with fellow V-M Class of 1976 members Leo Walter III, Jim Bennett and Paul Longville. He also had a reunion with other 1976 grads Bernie Rochford, Al Graf, Ken McDonald and Tim Walsh.

Leo Walter lives in Akron. 1981 University of Akron graduate Jim Roetzel lives in Cuyahoga Falls.

Paul Longville has been P&L Safety owner in Brecksville since 2009, providing safety consulting and training services to clients in manufacturing facilities, mining, heavy industrial and municipal. Previously, Longville for 13 years was manager of safety & quality in the in the steel industry and 16 years in the transportation, primarily in audit and capital budgeting management positions.

Ken Krause, one of seven siblings, is married to former BJ reporter Maura McEnaney, who 

works for Fidelity Investments, headquartered in Boston. Maura is the author of “Willard Garvey: An Epic Life.” Garvey built homes in the USA, South America and Asia for people with low incomes, is owner-operator of the “world’s largest” grain elevator, is the “largest private landowner in Nevada” and builder of Kansas’s tallest building—the Epic Center with its slanted copper roof.

Maura knew the Garvey family through friends and, after a half-decade of research and other prep work, put the book together. 

Syracuse graduate Maura’s more than three decades as a business writer and editor include being on the BJ team that won a Pulitzer Gold Medal for its “A Question of Color” about race relations in the Akron area. She left the BJ for Boston in 2000 and later worked for Bloomberg News.

Ken and Maura wound up in Medford because Maura has a lot of family in the Boston area.

If you want to see 166 photos telescoped into 24 montages of the 3-month stay in The Villages, Florida by BJ newsroom retiree John Olesky and former BJ State Desk reporter Paula Stone Tucker, click on

https://plus.google.com/photos/115483244393507838338/albums/6139461675591246913?banner=pwa

This includes reunions and golf outings with retired BJ printer Hugh Downing and wife Sharon, who had lived in The Villages for more than a decade.

Mark Dawidziak, Mark Twain, Hal Holbrook

Mark’s Twain coming down the track

If it looks like a Twain and talks like a Twain, it must be a Twain, right?

Well, a 21^st century facsimile, Mark Dawidziak, PD and former BJ entertainment critic.

Appropriately, Mark’s latest book is “Mark Twain’s Guide to Diet, Exercise, Beauty, Fashion, Investment, Romance, Health and Happiness,” which may be the Guiness record for longest title.

Writes Mark:

“Just arrived and looks great. The local debut event will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 4, at the Beachwood branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library. The national book launch will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 9, at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. Sara and I will be performing Twain material at both. Hope to see lots of friends at both events. The changed cover photo indicates to whom the book is dedicated.”

That would be actor and Mark Twain impersonator Hal Holbrook, the only person in America more famous for doing Mark Twain than Mark Dawidziak. 

The two Twains cross tracks often somewhere in the other Twain’s America.

Dawidziak's  "Mark Twain in Ohio" book was launched two weeks ago at the 33rd Akron Antiquarian Book Fair.

This is Dawidziak's 12th book, including two other Twain efforts -- "Mark My Words" and "Mark Twain on Writing." 

Other Dawidziak books include the 1994 horror novel, “Grave Secrets”; two histories of landmark TV series, “The Columbo Phile: A Casebook” (1989) and “The Night Stalker Companion” (1997); and “The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dracula” (2008).

Trexler leaving BJ for Channel 3

Beacon Journal reporter Phil Trexler will join WKYC TV-3 as investigative producer beginning May 4 after working in Ol' Blue Walls since 1998.

Phil Trexler

Writes Phil:

“I'll miss my Beacon family for sure. Change is good.”

Trexler has been at the BJ for two decades and has won Press Club awards for his work.

Trexler is no stranger to television. He discussed the Painesville murder case on CNN’s “Nancy Grace Show.” Kevin Knoefel, 43, was convicted of guilty having sex with his foster daughter, Sabina Zunich, and convincing her to kill his wife, Lisa Knoefel, for nearly $785,000 in insurance money while Knoefel was elsewhere.

Phil also keeps busy writing books about baseball, such as “Ballparks, Yesterday & Today” and “Cleveland Indians, Yesterday and Today.” I think there’s a pattern to the titles of Phil’s tomes.

In February the Ohio Supreme Court voted 4-3 to require Trexler to explain why he shouldn't be forced to testify in an Akron Bar Association disciplinary hearing against Akron attorney Larry Shenise.

Harry’s son, kidney doing well

Tom Liggett, son of the late BJ Alums founder and newsroom retiree Harry Liggett, is doing well two months after his February 15 kidney transplant.

Writes Tom:

“I am happy that everything related to the new kidney has been even better than expected. My labs continue to be quite normal and I feel great. Thanks again to all my friends who continue to check on progress and think of me. I continue to be thankful for the medical staff at Cleveland Clinic who I see every two weeks now and, of course, to my donor and her family.”

Tom’s mother was Helen Smolak Liggett. His brother is Bob Liggett, who lives in Akron.

Tom is Community Pregnancy Center director of development. He and wife Susan also live in Akron. Their children are Anna Teresa and Erin Catherine.

Harry passed away in January 2014.

America’s worst jobs: Newspaper reporter

Being a newspaper reporter, where poor job prospects, low pay and layoffs have plagued the industry for years, is one of the worst jobs in today’s America, according to CareerCast.com.

It ranks below taxi driver – those guys who earn a pittance but get robbed and killed too often – but ahead of firefighter, enlisted military soldier and corrections officer.

To read the article, click on http://www.careercast.com/jobs-rated/worst-jobs-2015

Former Beacon Journal features department editor/columnist Connie Bloom, who has become a fabric art guru in Ohio, will be part of the “Conversations in Fiber, Glass and Photography” exhibit May 19-July 23 at the Margaret “Peg” Clark Morgan Gallery at 10 West Streetsboro Street in Hudson.

Connie will share the spotlight with Marianne Hite (in glass) and Bradley Hart (in photography).

Connie, a resident quilt artist in Summit ArtSpace on the third floor at 140 E. Market Street, is working on a “Silver Bullets” art fabric (in photo montage).

Writes Connie:

“I am really excited over this piece, which I created for a show at the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation. It relates to a glass work by Marianne Hite. They will be shown together.”

Art quilts is creating fiber art that looks like paintings.

Connie’s phone number is (330) 472-0161. Or you can email her at connie@conniebloom.com

Connie is publisher/editor of QSDS (Quilt Service Design Symposium), a quarterly online Ohio magazine about fabric art.

Former Garfield High majorette Connie is married to Bob Shields.

‘Tin Drum’ author Guenter Grass dies

Author Guenter Grass, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1999 for 1959’s “The Tin Drum,” about Germans dealing with their catastrophic Nazi history, died Monday at the age of 87.

Guenter Grass

"The Tin Drum" was followed by "Cat and Mouse" and "Dog Years," the Danzig Trilogy -- after the town of his birth, now the Polish city of Gdansk.

Combining naturalistic detail with fantastical images, the trilogy captured the German reaction to the rise of Nazism, the horrors of the war and the guilt that lingered after Adolf Hitler's defeat through a young boy in Danzig who decided not to grow up while playing his tin drum.

"His literary legacy will stand next to that of Goethe," German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters said. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer and statesman and an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement which unfettered extremes of emotion.

Grass was a grocer’s son born in Danzig. He is survived by four children from his first marriage to Anna Schwarz, two stepchildren from his second marriage to Ute Grunert, and two children born to other partners.

BJ Circulation Department retiree Janet Hall’s birthday party Monday, April 13 was the latest excuse for another Circulation reunion. This one seems to be a week-long extravaganza . . . or longer. It may run till Janet’s next birthday.

BJ Marketing Communications Department retiree Carol Eubank, “queen” of BJ reunions, writes:

“The milestone birthday for friend Janet Hall continued, had a great lunch at Barberton Belgrade Gardens. Pictured is Sue Lindeman and birthday girl Janet, holding the candy bar birthday poem I created for Janet. Roses from Sue and a strawberry custard cake from Lisa Swan. Good friends, great time.”

Janet responded:

“Thanks my sisters for a wonderful as usual lunch. I love you all and I have already worked out the Whoppers for a taste. You’re the best.”

The first Janet birthday party, a surprise, or so they say, was in Brimtucky Shenandoah Lounge with BJ Composing retiree Mike Jewell and Sandi Hall among the participants.

Sandi, married to Harry Hall, is a daughter of James “Bus” Lowery, the late BJ pressroom retiree. Sandi spent a lot of time in the BJ Advertising department before her retirement.

Kathy Kochanski once was Hot Type/Sidebar editor of the Beacon.

Carol is active in the Portage Lakes Kiwanis Club and Portage Lakes Historical Society and has been involved in Greystone Building activities in downtown Akron. Carol, a 1957 Coventry High grad, lives in Portage Lakes. 

Carol celebrated another birthday with her friend, Kay Lukac, in March at Dusty's Yacht Club.

This Circulation crowd collage -- which embraces other BJ departments, too -- has been going on for a long time.

In 2007 the Circulation crew crowded together for a luncheon at Dontino's on Cuyahoga Falls Avenue. Retired BJ Circulation district manager Wayne Poteete got the ball rolling that time. 18 showed up, including Wayne.

Ned Barefoot, 88, was driven up from Carrollton by his daughter. Bill Aylward was there. Ned passed away in 2008, Bill in 2013.

 Marion Gid was there with husband Bob. And Bob Rosen, John Frient, Al Keller, Bill Lambert, Bill Thomas, Louis Moss, Grover Gregory, Art Beck and Joe Patterson joined the Circulation cloutarama.

When Linda McElroy, Beacon Circulation Accounting Department retiree and BJ Business Department retiree Harold McElroy’s widow was in town from her Pawley’s Island, South Carolina home a year or two ago, the Circulation crowd assembled at the Golden Corral on South Arlington Street.

Showing up that time were Bob Craiglow and wife Pat, Mike Jewell, Susan Lindeman, Janet Hall, Cheryl Sheinin, Martha (Cookie) Lipford, Noreen Dimmerling, Mickey Dimeff and Carol Eubank.

Linda lives a block away from retired BJ printer Dick Latshaw and wife Pat.

Retired BJ printer Sid Sprague moved from Pawleys Island to Colorado after Sid's wife passed away. Sid remarried and his second wife has family in Colorado.

Sid's wife, Sandra, 64, died in 2003. Sid's son, Steve, 38, of Middleburg, Virginia, died in 2010. 

As for those forever-circulating Circulation retirees:

When they say Circulation, they mean it!

Good for them!

It’s not King Tut’s tomb because it’s Mexico and not Egypt, but BJ Advertising Art retiree Mike Williams (BJ 1968-2012) and wife Jane Williams are dancing their way through the Teotihuacan, considered the site of many of the most architecturally significant Mesoamerican pyramids built in the pre-Columbian Americas.

Mike, who has traipsed through Ecuador often with his wife Jane, has a different viewpoint:

“Actually our guide insisted the structures at Teotihuacan were not pyramids, but platforms -- temples -- and not burial sites. So really the Egyptian pose is off the mark.

“If you're looking for a true pyramid in Mexico you need to go to Cholula, near Puebla, where the structure is 400 meters on a side (largest in Egypt is 266 meters a side).

“The Cholula pyramid is honeycombed with passages, and the guide there asked if any of us were claustrophobic to the point we couldn't negotiate 800+ meters of tunnels.

“If you're looking for an impressive Cheops-version pyramid there you'll be disappointed. It has been extensively eroded (and quarried), has trees growing on it and a Catholic church on top.”

Teotihuacan, 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, is also anthropologically significant for its complex, multi-family residential compounds,  the Avenue of the Dead.

With 125,000 people at its zenith, Teotihuacan once was the sixth largest city in the world during its 100 BC to 7^th century AD existence.

It is the most visited archaeological site in Mexico.

Mike and Jane have spent months in Ecuador,  including a trek up the Andes Mountains, and recently toured the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

Mike and Jane, married 36 years, have two sons, independent trucker Nathan Williams and chemical engineer Trevor Williams.

Mike retired from Ol’ Blue Walls in 2012 after 44 years, including coming under John Grimm’s wing in 1976.

Mark started in Advertising part-time in 1968 after bugging Ben James for a job during visits home from a freshman year at Ohio State. Retail Ad Manager Jim Muckley hired Mike full-time in 1971 in the Ad Services department. 

Mike’s sister, BJ information technology retiree Linda Williams Torson, is married to Akron-Summit County Metroparks retiree Tim Torson. Linda was with the Beacon Journal for 42 years.

Another sister, former clinical dietician Cindy Williams Chima, worked in the BJ classified phone room in the 1970s and writes fiction novels for young adults.

Linda started in the Beacon Journal classified phone room in the summer before her senior year in high school (1969). She was 16.  Helen Becton, manager in the phone room, hired Linda's twin Cindy at the same time.

Mike’s earlier quest was collecting every issue of Tower Topics, the BJ in-house employee newsletter, and digitizing them.

The Williams and Tom Moore families have been close friends for decades, beginning with Tom’s newsroom career at the BJ.

Welfare reform? Start with billions in profits but NO taxes

Time Warner Cable had $4.3 billion in profits in 2014 and paid less tax than you did. What did you pay? Time Warner paid NOTHING in federal taxes.

It gets better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint).

CBS had $1.8 billion in profits and got a federal income tax REBATE of $235 million.

Mattel hasn’t paid a penny in federal income taxes for five years and in 2014 got a tax REBATE of $46 million.

Prudential paid NOTHING on $3.5 billion in U.S. profits.

Ryder, the truck rental guys, had an 0.3% NEGATIVE tax rate in 2014 and NEGATIVE 0.5% for five years.

15 companies paid no federal income tax on $23 billion in profits in 2014, and paid almost no federal income tax on $107 billion in profits over five years. All but two received federal tax rebates in 2014.

How do these companies get by with this?

1. Accelerated depreciation, writing off the cost of capital investments much faster than they wear out. That costs America $42.8 billion a year.

2. Writing off the value of executive stock options for tax purposes. Cost to America: $2.3 billion a year.

3. Active financing, which lets multinational corporations pay taxes to no country. Cost to America: $7 billion a year.

Yet all the hue and cry is about “welfare” for the poor, such as tax stamps. But nothing about billions in “welfare” for the filthy rich.

So who foots the bill for corporate “welfare”?

Look at your IRS 1040 and you have your answer.

To read the entire article, click on http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/04/fifteen_of_many_reasons_why_we_need_corporate_tax_reform.php

Bus trip down memory lane

Chuck Ayers

It’s been 44 years but former BJ artist Chuck Ayers’ Kent State campus bus cartoon is just as funny as the day it was published.

The Kent State University Alumni Association web site dug it up again with this comment:

“Happy FLASHback Friday! Hopefully this 1971 cartoon by alumnus Chuck Ayers puts a smile on your face."

Reportedly Kent State owned the bus used in the “The Graduate.” So students put their butts where Dustin Hoffman's had been.

Former KSU Campus Bus Driver Tom Dowdy (Campus Loop, Stow-Kent, Ravenna and charters) called it “the best part-time job that I ever had. I still have my Ralph Kramden KSU Bus Service shirt!”