This is one of retired BJ photographer Ott Gangl’s photos that’s famous without nudity, and brings back a lot of good memories.

The late Michelle LeComte, then head of the Features Department and later an editor in Maryland till her 2010 death, was on a cruise.

So her Features Department minions concocted this photo to let her know that WE also were having fun in “The Caribbean.”

Alas, the only one in that photo who still works at the Ol’ Blue Walls is muscle beach boy Bob Dyer, who is Ohio Columnist of the Year so often that they should just name the trophy for him.

Taking them as they are in the photo, from the left:

BACK ROW

Mark Dawidziak is applying his entertainment critic skills at the PD when he’s not in a library somewhere portraying Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe or Charles Dickens.

Andrea Louie, a BJ reporter who saw the 9/11 Twin Towers come down from her Brooklyn apartment. Andrew delivered flowers and artwork in the World Trade Center many a time. She also wrote books and at least as of 2011, and maybe still, executive director of the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York City.

Betty Lammerding, who was stuck with the technology overload of putting out the Channels TV guide when I went on vacation, also retired.

MIDDLE ROW

Joan Rice is in Rootstown with her policeman husband, Larry Momchilov.

Jewell Cardwell got out a while back after writing columns have helped nearly every large and small charity in Northeast Ohio.

Bob, still bob-bob-bobbing along at his BJ computer.

Connie Bloom went from Features editor/pet columnist to Ohio fabric art (quilt) guru and has a studio in downtown Akron.

Elaine Guregian, former BJ arts and culture critic, is assistant director of Public Relations and Marketing for Northeast Medical University, which includes my grandson Dylan among its graduates (he’s interning at Akron Children’s Hospital).

BOTTOM ROW

Jane Snow still is the best food writer in Ohio, maybe in America, but she does it in recipe books and on her web site when she isn’t sharing food with her husband at his Sushi restaurant in the Merriman Valley.

John Olesky, the cowboy with the weird sunglasses and the legs that later were described as “not bad for an old guy,” has been away from Ol’ Blue Walls for more than 19 years and has traveled with Paula Tucker, his former reporter on the BJ State Desk, to 53 countries and 43 states in the 11+ years they’ve been together.

Thanks for the memories, Ott. You give us all hope that we’ll be around for another of your famous photo shoots. With our clothes on, of course.

Ott’s photo and his commentary also appeared in this BJ Alums blog in 2005, when the late Harry Liggett will still running this journalistic real estate. And pops up from time to time on social media.

And it’s a reminder that, although this gang formed a damn good gaggle of journalists, they also knew how to enjoy life.

 

Somber reprint from 1970

Tom Suchan

Somehow it seems appropriate that I end this Veterans Day with a reprint of a 1970 Veterans Day piece by Tom Suchan, a former BJ editor who passed away Oct. 2 in Wichita, Kansas.

After 13 years at Ol’ Blue Walls, Tom went to Ohio Magazine as executive editor, then in 1978 to the Wichita Eagle.

In 1991, he retired from newspapers even though he was only 49.

The rest of his life was devoted to volunteering and writing a column for the parish monthly newspaper.

I think Tom’s 1970 effort is worth another salvo to wind up Veterans Day.

Pittsburgh layoffs, consolidation

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review laid off 153 of its 1,100 employees and consolidates newspapers as part of a “sweeping restructuring.”

The company founded by Richard Scaife in October sold The Leader Times, The Daily Courier, The Mount Pleasant Journal, The Independent-Observer, The Ligonier Echo, The Times-Sun, The Blairsville Dispatch and The Jeannette Spirit and are in talks with potential buyers for The Valley Independent and The Daily News. If no one bites, those two will be closed and 91 more employees will be out of work.

The Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the Valley News Dispatch will morph into one paper, the Tribune-Review, with regional editions and the home delivery area will shrink.

The printing facility in Greensburg will close at the end of the year.

Jennifer L. Bertetto, President and Chief Executive Officer of Trib Total Media and 535 Media, made the announcement.

Vagabond BJ: From Repository to PD

Starting today, the BJ is being printed on Plain Dealer presses in Brooklyn, Ohio.

In 2013, Ol’ Blue Walls’ Canadian owner David Black sold the BJ printing press and began cranking out the BJ on the Canton Repository presses about 30 miles down I-77. New Media Investment Group, which owns the Repository, also prints the Cincinnati Enquirer on its Columbus Dispatch presses.

With all the extra wide space on the right and left edges of the BJ printed on PD presses, maybe Mr. Black can widen the columns a smidge and get free extra space for the words. It may be an optional illusion, but it makes the obituaries seem narrower.

The BJ newsroom, which was crammed with 250 employees at my 1996 retirement, has maybe 60 now – all on the third floor of the 44 East Exchange Street building that sits mostly empty on the other floors. The building began as a Music Hall before the Times-Press took over in 1930.  Scripps-Howard sold it in 1938 to John S. Knight. McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder, then sold the BJ to Black Press of Canada.

Ever since, the Canadian has been frying the BJ’s bacon.

Vagabond printing presses are not unique to the BJ or the Enquirer. Canada’s Transcontinental prints the San Francisco Chronicle, with its hallowed history, on its Fremont, California presses 38 miles south of the Bay Area.

In 2009 alone, at least a dozen Ohio newspapers reduced the number of days they delivered print newspapers. The Internet and lack of ownership foresight to become an invaluable part of the new technology led newspapers into this downward spiral.

It used to be that what was in the newspaper was only 12 hours older than the previous evening’s TV newscasts. Now it’s at least 24 hours older than what’s posted on social media, news organizations’ web sites or on emails.

November 11 important in America and Poland

In America, November 11 is Veterans Day.

In Poland, it is Independence Day.

It celebrates the restoration of Poland as a nation after 123 years of partition by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Empire. All three were losers in World War I, so the Poles seized the opportunity to become a unified country again.

After World War II, the Soviet Union wiped out the day but Poles celebrated privately anyway. By 1989, with the Soviet influence subjugated, Poland restored November 11 as its Independence Day.

In the Early Middle Ages, Slavs migrated to the Polish lands. By 1569 there was a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. By 1795 the Russians, Prussians and Habsburgs took over the country and partitioned it.

In reality there was no Poland from 1795 to 1918. Or in 1939 till the end of World War II. The Third Polish Republic began in 1989 under pressure from Lech Walesa and the Solidarity trade union born in the Gdansk shipyard.

There are links to Polish and American independence.

Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kościuszko, who fought the Russians and Prussia on behalf of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, became a brigadier general in the Continental Army and designed West Point and its fortifications that proved difficult to penetrate because of its location.

Casimir Pulaski is considered the father of the American cavalry. He came across the Atlantic Ocean at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, and saved George Washington’s life during one battle involving his Pulaski Calvary Legion. Pulaski is among eight people given honorary American citizenship.

In Monongah, West Virginia the Polish Catholic St. Stanislaus Church of my childhood there are three photos on the basement walls: Kosciuszko, Pulaski and Christ. In that order.

In America, November 11 first was called Armistice Day, when World War I hostilities ended on the 11^th hour of the 11^th month of 1918 with the signing at Compiegne, France between representatives of the Allies and Germany.

Plane crashes into Akron apartment building; 9 die

Nine passengers were killed when their small, twin-engine plane crashed into an apartment building at Mogadore Road and Skelton Road in Akron around 3 p.m. today.

That makes it the deadliest plane crash in Akron history.

An Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesperson said the plane was a Hawker Siddeley HS-125, a British corporate jet. It was trying to land at Akron's Fulton Municipal Airport.

The flight began in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, stopped in Dayton and then took off for Akron.



It was chartered by Execuflight, a Florida company.  
Augusto Lewkowicz is the owner and operator of the plane. The company owns Staples and Panera on Howe Avenue in the Chapel Hill business complex. The passengers were executives and employees of Florida-based Pebb Enterprises, a real estate company.

The crash caused at least 1,500 customers to lose power and Ohio Edison officials said all but 100 customers were restored in a few hours.


The Akron Fire Department had several units at the scene.

To read Craig Webb’s excellent BJ sidebar on another multi-fatality plane crash in Akron history, click  on

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/death-toll-from-tuesday-s-crash-is-deadliest-air-disaster-in-summit-county-history-eclipsing-world-war-ii-crash-toll-1.639510

Carney reports on Carney

Retired BJ reporter and sometime radio show sub Jim Carney is home after the fusion surgery on his back.

Like the good reporter that he is, Jim gives an excellent detailed report of his situation:

“Got home from Crystal Clinic: St. Thomas Late Sat afternoon. The surgery went well.

Jim dandy and KT

“Dr. Richard Brower fused my lower back - L3/4 L4/5. My back still hurts at the incision - 6 inches long / and at the 3 inch incision where he took a bone graft from my pelvis. Those are big incisions!

“I have bad spinal stenosis and Dr. Browser straightened the lowest part of my spinal column. Have bad asthma and coughing up stuff from the four-hour surgery has been hard. It is like trying to cough with a bruised rib.

“I am wearing a back brace during the day when sitting or standing or walking. Previous to surgery I could not stand or walk bad nerve pain in my leg that came on in a minute or two. I walked 6 minutes in the house Sunday and there was no pain. A true miracle! No bending, lifting or twisting!

“Thanks to all who said a prayer and to all the bright lights at the hospital from Dr. Brewer to the nurses and aides. Everyone was terrific. The recovery feels like it is progressing steady every day.”

Jim and BJ reporter Katie Byard have been married 28 years and live in Akron.

Final 2015 appearance as Mark Twain

Our Mark playing the other Mark

PD and former BJ entertainment critic Mark Dawidziak will wrap up a fantastic year as author/humorist Mark Twain by, as Dawidziak puts it, “putting on the white suit one last time this year.”

This will be a 7 p.m. performance Thursday, Nov. 12, at the Parma-Snow Road branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library,  2121 Snow Road, Parma.

Mark writes:

“What an incredibly rewarding year it has been, getting to play Mark Twain around the state and around the country, with glorious stops at The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn., the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio, the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Va., and Quarry Farm in Elmira, New York, where Twain and his family are buried far from Hannibal, Missouri.

Former BJ reporter Regina Medina among Philly casualities

Seniority doesn’t protect Guild officer

46 of the 436 Guild members at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News will be laid off Dec. 4, and seniority won’t protect older employees.

An earlier layoff under previous owner Brian Tierney sent more than 100 Guild members out the door.

The company can lay off up to 25% of the target group without regard for seniority, which puts a dozen higher-paid veterans at risk.

Just in time for Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

Newspapers eliminated 3,800 jobs in 2014, and 32,900 during the 2008 and later Great Recession.

And with 2015 following suit, it’s closing in on the pre-recession peak of 55,000 in 2006.

In 2013 1,300 job went bye-bye and 2,600 in 2012. More than 10,000 jobs each year were eliminated in 2007 and 2008.

 

Regina Medina

Hi John, 

If you want to insert this into your item on the blog:

Former Beacon Journal business reporter Regina Medina (1994-95) was one of the 46 Guild members laid off in Philly, despite 16 years of seniority at the Daily News. Regina is an officer for the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, Local 38010 of the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America (Local 10).

Information from Janet Moore, another former Beacon Journal business reporter, now at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where she is the president of TNG-CWA Local 37002.

- Ken Krause, former BJ editor living in Medford, Massachussetts.

REGINA MEDINA had been a reporter at the Philadelphia Daily News for 16 years and covered the Philadelphia school district. She previously covered crime, general news stories and celebrity news for the paper. She has also worked as a reporter at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, The Akron Beacon Journal, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily Journal in Caracas, Venezuela. Regina is a former regional director for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and a lifelong member of the organization. Regina bikes, bakes and babbles on about pop culture on any given day. 

Artist Pam McCarthy with her paintings

Artist latest gig for Pam McCarthy

Pam McCarthy, a State Desk reporter in the 1970s before her 33-year teaching career and a myriad of post-“retirement” activities including district manager for Arbonne International, a skin and health products company, is trying her hand as an artist. Which explains her photo and the paintings she’s displaying at First Friday in Canton, a monthly blast in the downtown Canton art district.

So far she’s up to three paintings.

Pam’s first retirement was from North Canton Hoover High School, where she taught English and journalism, in 2008.

Up the road her husband, Ken Pakenham, was teaching English at the University of Akron. No bad grammar in that family.

Ken, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Pam were married in 1988 and have twins Michael and Kate.

Los Angeles attorney Bethany Marvin Stevens, daughter of Pam and former husband and former BJ photographer Tom Marvin, made Pam a grandmother when she gave birth to Jackson Marvin Stevens.

Pam's siblings are Karen Uber of Cuyahoga Falls, Kathy McCarthy of Cuyahoga Falls and Jerry McCarthy of Bradenton, Florida.

Paul Tople, who has been a top-notch photographer from his Kent Stater days and the 1970 killings of KSU students by the Ohio National Guard through his decades at the BJ until his retirement, has gone from Ol’ Blue Walls to Blue Hawaii.

Well, Norton High's famous graduate Paul and wife Sally (BJ photographer and line-drawer Ted Schneider’s ex-wife) are on the way in this photo taken aboard the plane, anyway.

Maybe they’ll run into another former BJ photographer, Tom Marvin, who’s doing the Hawaii trip with wife Kay. They live on a farm in Guernsey County, just north of Salt Fork State Park, near I-77 and north of Cambridge.

I guess it pays to show up and vote rather than rely on the polls to determine the outcome of elections.

Case in point: The solid rejection of Issue 3, which would have allowed 10 monopolies to grow and distribute marijuana in Ohio.

Kent State University/WKYC poll said 56% favor, 34% oppose.

Baldwin Wallace poll: 43% in favor, 38% opposed.

Bowling Green State Zogby poll: 44% in favor, 43% opposed.

The only poll that sent up a serious warning flag that the pot amendment might be in trouble, the University of Akron Buckeye poll run by former BJ editor John Green, used the word “monopoly” in the question, which the other polls avoided. 53% agreed that it was a "bad idea because it will grant ten wealthy landowners a monopoly on growing marijuana in Ohio."

Despite that concern, the Akron poll came up with this result: 46% in favor, 46% opposed.

Even that wasn’t close to the actual voting results:  64% opposed, 36% in favor.

By the way, Thomas E. Dewey, despite the Chicago Tribune headline, did NOT defeat Harry S. Truman for U.S. President in 1948.

The pollsters got that one wrong, too. As radio comedian Fred Allen quipped, Truman was the "first president to lose in a Gallup and win in a walk." Truman Missouri waltzed his way back into the White House and the Chicago Tribune is still trying to wipe the egg off its face.

Former BJ op-ed editor and Kent State faculty retiree Bob Springer and KSU retiree Barbara Hipsman Springer, Bob’s wife, are in Portland, Oregon for several weeks visiting their daughters, Anna and Kyle, who live there. Anna moved from St. Charles, Illinois in 2014 to join her sister.

Bob spent his 35^th wedding anniversary helping Anna move while Barb stayed behind in the Midwest.

Bob and Barb are really cozy in the rental you see. Barb calls it a “very tiny house.”

Writes Bob:

“The kitchen and bath are downstairs, a bedroom up with a queen that more or less takes up all the space. No TV, so we can be forced to get out and hike Mount Tabor Park."

They’ll switch to a different B&B for another 10 days before they head for Arizona. Bob and Barb are quite familiar with the Cactus State since they’ve vacationed there a lot, and for more than just a few weeks at a time.

Barb retired in 2013 after 26 years in Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State.

Bob came to Kent State in 2008 as an academic adviser after 19 years at the Beacon Journal as a copy editor, reporter and, for his final 14 years, as the Op-ed editor and member of the editorial board. 

He is a Southern Illinois journalism graduate who also worked at the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver Post and the weekly Center (Colorado) Post-Dispatch.

Stark 5^th area Star Library

Canton-Stark County Direct Library was among 54 libraries that joined 207 previous libraries as a Star Library, according to the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service.

The Akron-Summit County Library is a 4-star library.

Hudson is a 5-star library. Of course.

Peninsula and Twinsburg rate 3 stars.

28 Ohio libraries are Star Libraries. 11 states have NO Star Libraries.