update on sid sprague

 

CATCHING UP WITH

Retired BJ printer Sid Sprague

 

Retired printer Sid Sprague, who lives in Loveland, Colorado, will have cataract surgery next month.

 

Sid will be 85 in March. And he keeps getting cancer-free test results after his prostate surgery a few years ago.

 

Sid says second wife Nancy “is doing well,” too. Nancy, who is from Canton, was neighbor and friend to Sid’s late wife, Sandra. After Sandy passed away, Sid and Nancy married and moved in 2005 from Pawleys Island, South Carolina to Loveland.

 

They’ve been back to the Carolinas 3 times since.

 

Nancy’s sister moved from the Carolinas to Virginia.

 

Sid’s granddaughter will be married in Connecticut in July. Sid hopes to make it for the wedding, depending on the pandemic and other things.

 

Sid had joined the late Dick Latshaw and Harold McElroy, also BJ retirees, in Pawleys Island.

 

Sid’s daughter, Suzanne Sprague Rutherford, lives in Costa Mesa, which is 37 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Sid’s son, Jeffrey Sprague, lives in Greenwich Township, on the southwest tip of Connecticut. Another son, Steve, passed away in Middleburg, Virginia at the age of 38 in 2010.

 

Sid’s phone number is (970) 613-1914. Call him and have a remote BJ reunion.

Dan Auxter passes away

 

Dan Auxter, Circulation zone manger at the BJ for decades, passed away Tuesday, November 10.

Dan started at the BJ in 1974 and was there for about 30 years. As a youngster Dan and cousin Steve Auxter delivered newspapers for a few years.

He supervised the outlying district warehouses.  Dan’s office was right around the corner from the PC tech department. 

When he left, Dave Green took his position.

He began his job at Rapid Start in Rittman in 2008.

His widow is Kathy Gasser Auxter. They have two daughters, Abbie Auxter Turbert and Emily Auxter Askew, a teacher at Jackson Memorial Middle School since 2015 who lives in Akron.

Dan’s obituary, which appeared in the Medina Gazette and the Wooster Daily News200:

Daniel C. Auxter, 68, of Creston, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020 at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Dan, who was known as Sarge to many, was born on Oct. 18, 1952 in Wadsworth to the late Eldon and Sylvia (Feesler) Auxter and was a 1971 graduate of Cloverleaf High School where he was the senior class president and has been the reunion organizer for the class.  He later graduated from Akron University. 

On May 26, 1978 he married the former Kathryn “Kathy” Gasser and she survives.

As a kid, Dan had a paper route in Seville, and as an adult, Dan was in the newspaper business for 38 years.  He had also worked at Pack Ship Logistics in Orrville and was currently working at Rapid Start in Rittman.  He always had an incredible work ethic which many admired. 

Dan was a true American Patriot having supported Veteran’s Organizations and helping with the laying of the wreaths at Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery.  He was involved in Junior Achievement at Norwayne Middle School for 19 years having helped with fundraisers with the kids for the annual 8th grade Washington DC trips which he had helped chaperone for 19 years.  Dan also taught a newspaper class at Norwayne High School for several years.  Being a man of God, Dan attended Canaan Free Will Baptist Church where he had organized the food distributions at the church for a number of years.  Dan was a member of the Westfield Country Club and was a Seville Historian having always had an interest in local history and all history.  Dan will be forever loved and remembered by his family and many friends.

Surviving are his wife, Kathy, his two daughters, Abbey (Pat Turbert) Auxter and Emily (Jeff) Askew; grandson, Chase Askew and a grandson on the way; a brother, David Auxter and his 4 children and his beloved cat, Tippy.

In respecting Dan’s wishes, a private family service will be held at Murray Funeral Home in Creston with Pastor Jim McComas officiating.  Tributes may be shared at www.Murray-Funeral-Home.com   Memorial contributions may be made to the Wounded Warrior Project or to the American Red Cross.  Dan requested that instead of friends and family attending calling hours that they would volunteer in the community for two hours in his memory.

Steve Auxter’s memories of his cousin, Dan Auxter:

 

“I want to thank you for the BJ Alums of November 16 2020.  Dan was my cousin, born in the same year and grew up in the same small town Seville Ohio.  Both of us delivered papers in the 1960s and those memories are dear and fond to me.  Mr. Crawley was our circulation manager

 

“Dan’s work ethic , dedication and tremendous value system was incredible.

 

“In our later years before he married Kathy had some great experiences at the old Coloseum.

 

“After he married Kathy we continued our strong bond and told stories to our wives about our experiences in Seville.

 

“Dan was a success.”

 

Steve is with Kovack Securities in Brecksville, Ohio.

Bob Carpenter health report

 

Bob Carpenter health report

Kent State graduate and former WKNT news director Bob Carpenter still is dealing with kidney stone problems.

Here’s his latest report:

“In late August I was bleeding from a 3/4” long kidney stone...they blasted with shock wave therapy called Lithotripsy. Next day I was in hospital for severe bleeding. I passed out twice at home due to loss of blood and got a transfusion. All is well now on that problem.

“At the same time I was having severe problems with eating and my stomach. I had an Endoscopy last week. They took two biopsies which I’ll know about this coming week. Monday I’ll be at the hospital getting an Upper GI Esophogram/Hiatal Hernia test. This could be the problem and is treatable. I can only eat very small amounts and drinking lots of Ensure Plus.

“I’ve lost about 30 pounds (now at 159) and am off a few of my heart meds for now. I’ve been so weak for two months. I haven’t had the energy to go on Facebook or go to Kiwanis, but hope too soon. Will let you all know.

“(Wife) Kaye has been so great in looking after me, Same for family and friends. Dang, we need a cruise real bad. We had 4 cancelled in 2020 and rebooked them in 2021. Thank you! Carp”

 

Bye, bye, motorcyle license

 The cycle of life

I no longer have a motorcycle license for the first time in 50 years.

When I got my Ohio driver’s license renewed a week before my 88^th birthday November 5, 2020, the clerk said:

“No more motorcycle on your driver’s license?”

I guess she figured an 88-year-old and a motorcycle were a bad combination.

So my new Ohio driver’s license no longer will have a “motorcycle” designation.

I was 38 when I rode a motorcycle for the first time, thanks to the late Gene Gray, a good-hearted electrician in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio who loved to share his toys with his friends.

He gave me some instructions and put me on his 250 cc Benelli, built by an Italian motorcycle company that began in 1911, sold shotguns first, then was taken over by Argentine owners and currently Chinese owners.

What a thrill it was when I rode that Benelli up the Gray farmland hill in Willard, Ohio and then soared into the air when I reached the top of the steep mini-cliff! I was hooked.

Gene sold me the Benelli. Hell, practically gave it away.

Eventually the Olesky home in Cuyahoga Falls had the Benelli, a 175 cc Yamaha, a 125 cc Honda, a Penton dirtbike and a 75 cc step-through Yamaha that I drove to work daily.

The baby Yamaha put me into a hospital ER when I crashed into a curb in the sudden rain on my way to work at the Akron Beacon Journal. Afterward, I showed up a work, then passed out. The late printer Terry Dray reached across the turtle where we were putting together a page of hot type to keep me from slamming into the floor.

The Olesky family rode those motorcycles with our “gang,” other parents with their children, in Ohio, in West Virginia, in Pennsylvania and in New York. On non-interstate roads, on logging trails.

Gene would be in the lead motorcycle and I would be riding shotgun (last bike in a line of up to 15 motorcycles) to protect the riders between Gene and me from auto traffic.

I once got the Benelli up to 85 mph on a straight road with no traffic in either direction. Wind whipping at the face protector on my helmet. If you haven’t done it, you just can’t understand it.

My personal Mona Lisa, my late wife, sold the motorcycles when the children were reaching the age where they could legally buy their own bikes. “If they kill themselves on a motorcycle,” Monnie said, “then at least it won’t be my fault.”

I’ve driven about everything that moves in my lifetime, including an elephant in Thailand that splashed gleefully into a water ride with Paula and me seated atop it. And horses at Blackwater Falls in West Virginia, till one tried to rub me off with a tree. Maybe he was prejudiced against a Polish-American in his saddle. And a camel with the Great Pyramids of Egypt in the background.

Motorboats. “Crew” member of a sailboat on Lake Erie. Trains between Virginia and Florida and Cass Railroad for tourists to the highest point in West Virginia.

Hot air balloon drifting above the land in Ohio.

Wrecked a few, too, in my youth.

Scooter, wagon, a child’s contraption that you sat on a seat and pulled the handle and shaft back and forth to get it moving, bicycle. Well, it was a reddog road, which meant there were a lot of rocks and few smooth paths. So over the holler I went on Thomas Street in Monongah, West Virginia, time after time. Once, Tom Retton who lived across the holler on Jackson Street saw my unconscious body 100 feet down the ravine from the road. He carried my lifeless form to our house, knocked on our door and told my Mom, “Here’s your son.” She fainted.

Mom fainted several times over my misadventures which required medical treatment.

I’ve also been on cruise ships more than a dozen times, in commercial jet passenger planes including one that was close enough to the North Pole to see the aurora borealis on our way to China.

I’d skied snowy slopes in Ohio, once almost sending one ski to one side of a tree and the other to the other side, stopping barely in time and preventing a split “personality.” And water-skied in the Ohio River and on Lake Erie.

I crashed a friend’s borrowed bicycle into a parked truck in Monongah. Learned some new curse words from the truck’s owner.

I rode wooden toboggans done commercial chutes in Ohio, wind blowing through my hair (I had hair then). I went sledriding on the hills around Monongah where we had to drag our feet at the bottom to keep from being scalped by barbed wire. One girl didn’t do it fast enough and lost a lot of hair and scalp.

When the 1950 snowstorm of 45.5 inches hit northern West Virginia I rode my sled down steep Swisher Hill because automobiles weren’t able to navigate U.S. 19. We were going so fast at the bottom that we had to drag out feet going UP the next hill to keep from flying off the curve and into injuries.

I’ve ridden miniature hot-rods on commercial tracks.

I hitch-hiked, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, from Monongah to Chicago to Philadelphia to Monongah. My mother gave me two $20 bills and had me put one in each sock. When I returned home after my 1,300-mile journey, I still have one $20 bill in one of the socks.

One of the drivers who gave me a ride told me how he was heading back to Montana to shoot the guy who stole his wife from him. I made sure not to irritate the driver the rest of my ride from Massillon, Ohio to near Chicago.

I took lessons to be an airplane pilot but never actually flew a plane. My mother-in-law said, with my penchant for running out of gas in automobiles, that I probably would run out of gas with the plane.

I never tried skydiving because I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the ripcord in time to keep my body from slamming into the ground.

I’ve used transportation to visit 56 countries and 44 states. Thailand was my favorite foreign country. Beautiful scenery, beautiful people (inside and out). We took a large rowboat to the water markets in Bangkok. We did our shopping without leaving the boat. The merchants just handed our purchases from their boat to our boat.

Lot of memories. They help sustain me during the stay-home pandemic year.

I’ve had plenty of varooms in my life. And not just on the motorcycles.

Click on photo to enlarge the image

 

 

 

 

Nancy Yockey Bonar’s stepdaughter passes away

Julie Renee Bonar Baughman, 66, stepdaughter of Nancy Yockey Bonar, passed away Wednesday, October 28 in Florida.

BJ newsroom retiree Nancy posted:

BELOVED Julie Renee Bonar Baughman. age 66, gained her angel wings Wednesday at 4 pm and flew toward Heaven. She'd been in a West Palm Beach hospice with lung cancer.

Julie is the mother of Floridians John "Jay" Baughman, Jupiter Beach, and Jaime (Willie) Corzo, (children, Christian and Julian), Naples, and mother-in-law Edna Baughman, West Palm Beach; and the Ohioans, her stepmother Nancy Yockey Bonar, Medina, as well as her brother, Timothy Bonar (Erica), Cleveland Heights.

Julie was proceeded in death by husband John Baughman, Jr., West Palm Beach; father David Bonar, and mother Barbara Bunten Bonar, both of Akron, Ohio; uncle Navy Capt. Harry M. Yockey (Jackie), Louisville, Ky. , and many pets, including Tickles dachshund, and Grizilla moon cat.

Julie was courageous and resolute, a wonderful mother, a fantastic house keeper, and in recent years a manager of a nursery/landscape company. She was extremely creative and blossomed as a gardener who liked all flowers.

Julie/her ashes will be brought home to Akron in the future; other ashes will be spread in the Atlantic Ocean.

The photo is of Julie and me in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, between Akron and Cleveland.

The obituary version that appeared in the BJ on Sunday:

 

Akron native and Firestone High graduate, Julie Renee (Bonar) Baughman, 66, West Palm Beach, FL, met Jesus on October 28. Lovin g/courageous mother of Floridians, John B. Baughman III, Jupiter Island, and Jaime (William) Corzo (children Christian and Julien), and Ohioans, stepmother, Nancy Yockey Bonar, Medina, and Timothy Bonar (Erica), step-brother, Cleveland Heights. Proceeding Julie in death, husband, John Baughman Sr.; parents, David and Barbara (Bunten) Bonar, Akron; and grandparents: the Bonars and Buntens, Akron, and Yockeys, Dover, OH. Cremation has taken place. Memorials for Julie Baughman: American Cancer Society www. cancer.org (800-227-2345). Condolences: John Baughman, The Claridge,

19950 Beach Rd., Jupiter Island, FL 33469

49th wedding anniversary to remember

Anniversary interrupted for Char and Art

Retired BJ reporter Charlene Nevada and retired BJ chief artist Art Krummel were going to celebrate their 49^th wedding anniversary. But Art wound up with emergency Pacemaker surgery. He’s home now so all went well, Char reports.

Their daughter, Beth Krummel Meese, posted:

“49 years and still smiles all around! Happy anniversary mom and dad. You make it look easy!!!!”

Click on photo to enlarge it

 

 

 

Derf’s mom passes away

Mary Anne Hamilton Backderf, mother of former BJ artist John Derf Backderf, passed away Monday, October 26.

She was another victim of COVID-19 pandemic.

Derf posted:

“She'd been in hospice for a few days, and in the ICU for a week, so it was only a matter of time.

 

“This is my favorite photo of her. She hated to have her picture taken, but this one captures her personality perfectly. She was extroverted and chatty, she enjoyed life. She was an Akron girl through and through. I'm going to miss her.

 

“Stay safe everyone. Don't get careless.”

 

Almost a quarter-million Americans have died in the pandemic  . . . so far.

 

Trip down 44 E. Exchange Street memory lane

 

Click on photo montage to enlarge it

There’s a lot of memories crammed into this old BJ reunion photo with identifications provided by newsroom retiree Roger Mezger.

Photographer Don Roese and wife Maryann Roese are in the photo. They visited former BJ State Desk reporter Cathy Strong, a journalism legend in New Zealand, and Paula and I met Don at the airport when they were leaving and we were arriving for our visit with Cathy.

Another photographer, Tom Marvin, who lives on a farm in southeast Ohio with wife Kaye.

Photographer Ron Kuner, famous for his apples in Stark County, I believe.

Photographer Ott Gangl, famous for his sinday photo shoot in the BJ photography studio on Sundays and skiing around the world with his late wife, Anne.

Photographer Denny Gordon, who has pedaled his bicycle a zillions miles, often 20 miles at a time.

Chief photographer Bill Hunter, responsible for the eccentric but talented crew.

Photographer Lew Stamp.

Betty Lammerding, in the Features Department when I was Television Editor and the late Joan Rice was at the next desk to mine.

Russ Musarra, with the famous temper and talented investigative reporting.

Ken Krause, who moved to Medford, Massachusetts with wife Maura McEnaney.  

Kathy Fraze, who proved me right when I told BJ management that this State Desk reporter would make a great editor.

Bill Hershey, who was the best digging reporter at the BJ during my time there, and quick-thinking when a union organizer put a gun to his head while Bill was talking to me. He told the guy, “They are saying a lot of lies about what you guys are doing and I’m here to prove that they aren’t true.” So the guy said, “Come along with us” as they burned tipples of non-union mines.

Chuck Ayers, whose remarkable political cartoons and “Crankshaft” comic series flashback in my mind when I look at the autographed food container that he signed for me. It’s still in my den, a shrine to my memories.

Former librarian Sandy Bee Lynn, who Paula and I run into regularly because he husband and Paula often play in the same bands or go to the same concerts.

Reporter Jim Carney, perhaps the nicest person I encountered during my 26 years at the BJ, who probably still has the scare from jumping his head into a street sign after crossing is hurriedly to escape traffic.

Pam McCarthy, who had a reunion with Cathy Strong in Ohio that included me.

The erascible Charles S. Montague, aka Chasm, who has even more memories than I do about Ol’ Blue Walls.

Susan Reynolds, newsroom secretary who could match whirling devish Pat Englehart is any discussion.

Roger Mezger, who has become a better chronicle of the old days at the BJ than me even though I publish the BJ Alums blog. Maybe he can take over the blog when I join Harry Liggett in that Great Newsroom in the Sky.

Charlene Nevada, who kept her nose to the ground to get the news and to help us keep track of what was going on at the BJ. As BJ Editor Paul Poorman once famously answered a question with: “I don’t know. Charlene hasn’t told me yet.”

If you’re old enough I’m sure you can conjure up even more memories of your own.

You know what they say: No one ever dies as long as someone has them in their memories.

Thanks, Roger.

 

 

BJ memory wall

 

Click on the wall to enlarge it.

45th wedding anniversary for Jeff Sallot

Click on the montage to enlarge it.

Former BJ reporter Jeff Sallot and Rosemarie Boyle celebrated their 45^th wedding anniversary today.

Jeff posted:

“Today is our 45th wedding anniversary. So much joy and happiness over the years. Jeff and Rosemarie.”

Previously, Kent State graduate Jeff, who had a major role in the BJ’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the 1970 National Guard shooting of 4 Kent State students and wounding of 9 others as a BJ summer intern and campus stringer for the Beacon, told me:

“My marriage with Rosemarie is the most important thing that has happened to me. We live in Ottawa, Rosemarie's hometown, and have two wonderful grown children. Mike, our eldest, is two hours away in Montreal. Kate lives here in Ottawa.

“My son from my first marriage, Ken, is happily married to a wonderful woman. They live in Gainesville, Florida.

“I joined the reporting staff at The Toronto Star after leaving the Beacon Journal in June 1971. I was transferred to their Parliamentary bureau in Ottawa in 1972.

“I met Rosemarie at the Star. She's a journalist, too.

“By 1974 Rosemarie and I were both back in Toronto, working for The Globe and Mail, a remarkable national newspaper. I stayed at the Globe for 32 years.

“Most of those years were in foreign or national bureaus. At various times I was the bureau chief in Moscow, Ottawa and Edmonton. I figured once that I have covered stories in more than 30 countries and every province and territory in Canada.

“There were a couple of timeouts from daily journalism to do fellowships at the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and, in China and Japan, with the Asia Pacific Foundation.

“I retired from the Globe to join the faculty at the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication. I teach multimedia reporting.” Carleton is in Ottawa.

 

It was Jeff who confirmed that only students were shot, and not National Guardsmen as other media incorrectly reported. The BJ went with Jeff’s version. Eventually, so did all of the media in America.

 

6th book for Steve Love

Click on montage to enlarge it.

Former BJ columnist has a 6^th book published, “Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns.”

 

One of Steve’s other five books is “The Holden Arboretum,” which I visit every year when the rhododendrons, the state flower of West Virginia, are in bloom in the spring.

Steve also wrote “Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens” (University of Akron Press) and co-authored with former BJ columnist David Giffels “Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron” (University of Akron Press) and with former Akron U. and Notre Dame football coach Jerry Faust “The Golden Dream” (Sagamore).

Steve’s other book is “Don Plusquellic,” about the irascible and always-in-the-spotlight former Akron mayor.

He also had a hand in two BJ Pulitizers, for James Goldsmith’s greenmailing of Goodyear that cost the company millions and cost many workers their jobs, and for A Question of Color, about race relations in Northeast Ohio.

Steve got his college degree from California State University at Chico.

This is the email I got from Steve about his latest published work:

“John.

 

“Hope you can use what you think is useful and add to it as you will. 

 

“I consider your website an important conduit for ABJ information.

 

“Steve”

 

 

Here is the information that Steve emailed me:

 

In an effort to prove that while he may be gone and forgotten but is not yet qualified for the Wall of the Dead, former Beacon Journal columnist Steve Love has written a sixth book. (One of the previous five was written with the more famous David Giffels and another was written for the even more famous Gerry Faust; the writing rasps like Gerry.)

 

Steve’s new book is “sort of” a memoir. Sort of, because he set out to write a collection of linked essays about quarterbacks whose play and lives he admired but ended up writing not only about football but also friendship, small towns, like the one in which he (mostly) grew up, a journey in journalism and the really good and bad things in life. It got so bad at one point he thought he had been consigned to the Death Beat.

 

His previous five books were published by the University of Akron Press, with the exception of The Golden Dream, which Sagamore Publishing put out before turning into Sports Publishing and then . . . it has had a few other incarnations but lives on. That might be a good definition of Steve’s career if you believe the late Dale Allen. He hired Steve to write a metro notes column, lived to regret it and gave Stuart Warner the job.

 

In his spirit of good humor—or maybe laughing from the grave—Dale presented Steve with the portion of his unpublished memoir and it is now published in Steve’s Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart. Dale’s contribution—lamentation—explains how he came to bring Steve to Akron. 

Steve explains the hostility, not entirely unwarranted, with which he was welcomed.

 

It is all good fun, even if it hurt at the time, Steve said. Since the book did not fit the University of Akron Press, though there is a concluding chapter devoted to Steve’s Akron adventure, and the University of Oklahoma Press declined the pleasure of publishing the book, Steve did it himself with the help of 1106 Design, a Phoenix company. They provided editing, proofreading, cover design (ain’t it beautiful?), interior design, and a lot of hand-holding for which Steve says he is grateful. Hardly anyone wants to hold his hand since he got old and forgotten and deep into cranky land. 

 

In the publishing process—Steve’s publishing company is called Hawk Bookworks because Hawkins was his mother’s maiden name, his nickname growing up, and made for a damned fine logo—he also launched a website that includes a mostly football blog. It can be found at stevelovewriter.com and Steve welcomes visitors who play nice. (Seriously, how does a person write about this kind of thing without poking fun?)

 

Since the BJ Alums site is where Steve goes to learn important things, like who died, he thought he should submit this to John Olesky, to whom all of us should be grateful for taking the torch from the late founder Harry Liggett, who hated me before reconsidering. Thankfully, any number of Steve’s former colleagues—not all, of course—eventually came to accept him if not actually like him, and that is what he will always remember. 

 

(The book is available from your favorite bookstore, Amazon.com, my website or other online book sites. ISBNs: Trade Paperback $16.99—978-1-7351227-0-0; Hardcover $29.99—978-1-7351222-2; eBook $7.99—978-1-7351227-1-7)

 

If you want to contact Steve, you can go to steve@stevelovewriter.com His Hawk Bookworks, so named in honor of his mother, is:

 

Hawk Bookworks

P.O. Box 400

Uniontown, OH 44685

 

A Uniontown mailing address, as the late State Editor Pat Englehart often told his editors and reports, means someone who lives in Stark, Summit or Portage counties. So look it up! (That’s Pat’s voice in my head.)