Former BJ food writer Lisa Abraham, who became Columbus Dispatch food editor after leaving 44 E. Exchange Street in 2014, is a senior writer at Kent State in the communications and marketing department.

The Niles, Ohio native and Ohio University graduate wrote an article for the spring/summer 2018 Kent State magazine about “Age of Anxiety.”

It deals with how Kent State tries to help its students dealing with the escalating problem of anxiety in America today.

In American colleges, that’s almost 1 out of every 3 students with anxiety or depression.

Lisa worked for the Toledo Blade and the Warren Tribune Chronicle before joining the Beacon Journal.

Go to https://www.kent.edu/magazine/AgeOfAnxiety to read Lisa’s article.

Dick Feagler, whose bemused scowl and witty words entertained Northeast Ohioans for 50 years, passed away Sunday.

Like me, Feagler was born in his grandmother's house. In his case, it was Cleveland’s Anderson Avenue. In my case, it was on Walnut Street in the coal mining town of Monongah, West Virginia.

His family moved to the Harvard-Lee area for Feagler’s childhood. Feagler went to John Adams High School and Ohio University, where he met concert violinist Grace. They had four children before divorcing in 1983.

Cleveland pop culture critic Mark Dawidziak provides a superb portrait of Feagler:

“Man, did this man know how to push nouns against verbs with a style that was every bit as engaging as it was provocative. And the guy behind the words was pretty engaging, too.”

Mark first came face to face with Feagler in 1983, when Mark was BJ television critic under my “guidance” as Television Editor.

The Cleveland Press, which ran Feagler’s column, folded, so Feagler began doing legendary commentary on WKYC-Channel 3.

Between WKYC and public station WVIZ-Channel 25 work on “Feagler and Friends,” Feagler won more than 20 local Emmys.

Mark concluded:

“We’ll make it goodbye in the order he would have preferred – a great writer, a great newspaperman and a great TV talent. However you cut it, Cleveland just lost a great one.”

To read Brian Albrecht’s PD tribute to Feagler, go to https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/07/columnist_dick_feagler_voice_o.html

Former BJ Columbus bureau chief Roger Snell is recovering from another bodyslam from his autoimmune system that “hit me so hard for the first time in 16 months” and put him in a hospital.

“This time,” Roger wrote, “it attacked temporal arteries. All kinds of drugs finally got pain relief and sleep.

“It is so disappointing to know there is no cure. But I’m sure glad that I have the doc and nurse-practitioner who rebuilt my immune system, coach me to a diet that eliminated diabetes, ulcers and more than 50 pounds. I am hoping this same strategy means I rebound more quickly from this horrible lightning strike.

“My progress has been so substantial that Linda and I resuming playing tennis for the first time in about 20 years. Now I’m back to one cane and only need it for a little added strength and balance.”

Before this latest attack, the regime took Roger from bedridden to wheelchair to walker in three weeks.

And that was after his immune system attacked his cerebellum and brain stem and stopped his breathing when he felt asleep for more than two years, putting him “on death’s doorstep,” as Roger put it.

Roger and wife Linda live in Frankfort, Kentucky where Roger is author/founder of Kentucky Proud, a Kentucky Department of Agriculture project that helps farm families reach the retail market.

They moved to Kentucky in 1998.

Their children are Rachel Snell Brown and Hannah Snell. Rachel is married to Joshua Lee Brown and their Isabel is Roger and Linda’s granddaughter.

Roger graduated from Arcanum High School in southwest Ohio and Ohio State University. He shares a Darke County birthplace with sharpshooting legend Annie Oakley.

Roger’s awards in an 18-year newspaper career include the Silver Gavel, the American Bar Association’s top national journalism award, in 1992 for his investigation of ethical abuses on the Ohio Supreme Court; and Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers Ohio Reporter of the Year in 1992 and 1993.

Roger authored a book, “Root for the Cubs,” about Charlie Root, the Chicago pitcher who gave up a home run to Babe Ruth that became lengendary as a "called shot."  Root's daughter, Della Root Arnold, calls it a myth.

After this latest bout, Roger wrote that his goal is to “make my scheduled late-August trip with the best seats ever (4 rows behind home plate) with friends from 20 years ago. I have to get my strength and balance back” to do that.

Bigelow calling hours July 12

Calling hours for Lloyd Bigelow, who passed away June 14, will be 5-8 p.m. Thursday, July 12 at Redmon Funeral Home in Stow.

Lloyd Bigelow

Lloyd and wife Claudine Syx Bigelow were among the 45 retired BJ printers and 5 Guild retirees who won the 2012 healthcare lawsuit against the BJ. The lawsuit began with a $2,500 check from the late Composing chief David White to an attorney/friend he met on a Siesta Key beach.

Lloyd retired from the BJ in 1992. Like a lot of BJ printers, he often vacationed on Siesta Key in former BJ printer Bill Gorrell’s vacation rental across the street from the beach. So did my late wife, Monnie, and I when we ran into the late BJ printer Hugh Downing and his wife, Sharon. In recent years, Paula and I got together with Hugh and Sharon in The Villages, Florida, where Sharon still lives.

Lloyd’s siblings were Elmer Bigelow, Homer Bigelow, Marilyn Bigelow and Lois Bigelow McDonald. His children are Becky Bigelow Hermann of Stow and Candy Bigelow Hale of Akron.

Lloyd’s obituary:

Lloyd L. Bigelow

STOW -- Lloyd Bigelow, age 97, of Stow, passed away on June 14, 2018 at home surrounded by family. He was born in Akron, Ohio to the late Homer and Elsie (Schumacher) Bigelow.

He was a World War II Veteran, served in the Army. He was a member of Bethany United Church of Christ in Cuyahoga Falls for 63 years. He retired from the Akron Beacon Journal. His greatest joy in life was his family.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 67 years, Claudine (Syx) Bigelow; parents; brothers, Elmer Bigelow and Homer Bigelow; sisters, Marilyn Bigelow and Lois McDonald; son-in-law, Randy Jonas and great grandson, Cyle Lorentz. He is survived by his daughters, Becky (Tim) Hermann of Stow, Candy (Bill) Hale of Akron; five grandchildren, Amanda (Shawn) Lorentz, Abigail (Dominic) Boull’t, Matilda (Patrick) McKelvey, Marshall (Sheena) Jonas and Keith Jonas; nine great grandchildren, Lloyd, Isabella, Sage, Eliza, Audrey, Kyrie, Cora, Elsie, and Julius; seven brothers and one sister; 42 nieces and nephews; step grandchildren, Matthew (Lori) Hale, Daniel Hale, Rebekah Hale; stepgreat grandchildren, Nolan and Lincoln Hale.

Family and friends visitation will be Thursday, July 12, 2018 from 5 to 8 p.m; Memorial Service on Friday, July 13, 2018 at 10:30 a.m., with calling hours 30 minutes prior, both at Redmon Funeral Home in Stow. Interment to follow at Mount Peace Cemetery with Military Honors. Memorials may be made to Bethany United Church of Christ in Cuyahoga Falls or to Claudine’s Clan Team for Walk to End Alzheimer’s, act.alz.org/goto/team_claudine . A special thank you to Summa Hospice and all the wonderful people that came to help us daily. (REDMON, STOW, 330-688-6631)

 

Debbie Fox retired from the BJ as customer service and call center manager.

Debbie wrote:

“I had 30 plus years. I’m going to enjoy sleeping in and spending time with my family. So far so good!”

Debbie is a Springfield High graduate.

Camping and Las Vegas may be in her future.

Debbie Fox and friends at her retirement party

 

David Hertz became Cleveland Jewish Publication Company board chairman June 25.

Beth Thomas Hertz, a BJ page layout and design editor for four years, was there to share in the moment.

So was David’s father, Harlan Hertz.

Cleveland Jewish News, a weekly which morphed into Cleveland Jewish Publication Company, was formed in 1964, succeeding the Jewish Independence, founded in 1906, and the Jewish Review & Observer, whose history began with the Hebrew Observer, founded in 1889.

After being located in Shaker Heights and University Heights, Cleveland Jewish Publication moved to its current location in Beachwood.

David left Ol’ Blue Walls in 2006 after 15 years as night metro editor, deputy business editor, region editor, business editor, metro editor and enterprise editor to become vice president in the media relations department of Dix & Eaton in Cleveland. On the same day, 24 left permanently with 335 years of combined BJ service.

David and Beth will celebrate their silver (25^th) wedding anniversity October 23. Their wedding was at the Civic Theatre where their BJ friends showed up to applaud.

David came to 44 E. Exchange Street after 5 years at Knight-Ridder’s Boca Raton, Florida newspaper.

Beth left the BJ to become managing editor in the Communications Department at the Cleveland Clinic and left that position to be a full-time freelance writer.

They live in Copley with children Alyssa and Josh.

Former BJ deputy Metro editor Arnie Rosenberg and New York City product Fran Sherman Rosenberg celebrated their 5^th wedding anniversary Friday, June 19 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, where they live.

Arnie wrote:

“Five years ago today, I said, ‘I do,’ and every minute since, I'm glad I did. Fran -- my wonderful wife, my companion, my partner and my best friend -- has made this a wonderful ride . . . and one destined to get even better as we share our lives. Happy Anniversary, My Love.”

Arnie is Treasure Coast Newspapers editor. Its circulation of 100,000 is spread over 5 counties and includes Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Jupiter in southeast Florida.

His other management stops included Newsmax, Palma Beach County Sun Sentinel, Denver Post, GIE Publishers, Sun Press/Messenger/Observer/News and Paineville Telegraph.

The Ohio University and Beachwood High graduate married Fran, a Staten Island High graduate, in 2013.

Arnie runs into former Ol’ Blue Walls occupants in Florida regularly.

Such as 1996-2000 BJ reporter and Wickliffe native Melanie Payne, a columnist for the News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida, in Arnie’s Stuart, Florida newsroom; and BJ business writer Betty Lin-Fisher in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2016.

Between them, Arnie and Fran's children are Amanda and Zach.

Arnie’s parents were Elise Kahn Rosenberg, a combat pilot instructor during World War II, and Murray Rosenberg, who came from Brooklyn to live in Beachwood after their 1948 wedding.

Arnie’s siblings are Carol Rosenberg Greenspan of Wellington, Florida and Lori Rosenberg of University Heights.

Memorial program for Oren Dorell, who was killed June 8 when a hit-and-run driver struck his motorcycle in Washington, DC.

His widow is former BJ copy editor Virginia "Ginny" Knapp Dorell.

Author and former BJ columnist David Giffels and wife Gina, a special education teacher, are celebrating their 30^th wedding anniversary in Paris.

I can tell you, since Paula and I had an anniversary observance there, that it’s a perfect place for a romantic getaway.

David and Gina’s children are Evan and Lia.

David wrote:

“Thirty years ago today, on a sunny afternoon in Akron, Ohio, this beautiful person became the best part of my life. Today, we’re in Paris, celebrating all those good years and all the good ones to come.”

David also is a guitarist and vocalist in the local May Company band and is devoted to Devo. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Akron.

Giffels took one of the many buyouts at Ol’ Blue Walls (his came in 2008 when 5 centuries of BJ experience walked nostalgically out the door).

He began at 44 E. Exchange Street in 1994.

He was born to the late Thomas Giffels and Donna Mae Auseon Giffels.

Billionaire former surgeon takes over 
LA Times on Monday

Biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a South African native and former UCLA surgeon, on Monday will take control of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, which have existed for more than 135 years.

Soon-Shiong forked over $500 million for the priviledge. The deal, which was announced Feb. 7, returns The Times to local ownership after 18 years under Chicago control.

The emphasis will switch from the printed newspaper to digital coverage. Newspaper advertising revenue in America peaked in 2005 at nearly $50 billion. It’s less than $17 billion and dropping now.

Soon-Shiong also owns six California hospitals.

The 800 employees will move from Los Angeles, the paper’s home since 1935, to El Segundo by the end of July. The Times once had 1,200 journalists on its payroll. About 400 remain.

To read the full article, go to http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-patrick-soon-shiong-latimes-sold-20180616-story.html

Former BJ movie critic and “Side Streets” columnist and features writer and current author Bill O’Connor threw a party for wife Elsbeth’s 75^th birthday on Saturday, June 16 “at the edge of a woods,” as one of Bill’s book sites says of their Bath Township home.

Bill married his Switzerland native in 2002. They both have four grown children from previous marriages. At least three of Elsbeth’s offspring were there.

So were Paula Tucker and I, of course, for another reunion with a former co-worker. Other one-time Ol’ Blue Walls people like artist Art Krummel and his wife, Charlene Nevada, a reporter, showed up, too.

And dozens of Bill and Elsbeth’s non-BJ neighbors and friends rambled their way to their residence.

Bill spent time at St. Francis College and Bowling Green University as a student and at Montana University on the faculty and also emigrated from a seminary.

He keeps writing novels nowadays – “Bums and Hersey Bars,” “The Legend of Horn Mountain,” “The Era of Long Thoughts” and “Saint Leo,” his latest.

Paula and I were at the 2012 bash for Elsbeth’s birthday, too. The magic survives.

When Bill and I talked about our days at the BJ, and being blessed with John Knight as the owner, it was reminiscent of what Bill wrote in this blog in 2005 to its late founder, Harry Liggett:

“The further I am from the time at the Beacon, the more I realize how privileged I was to work with such talented people.”

Indeed, Bill. I second that emotion.

Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist since 1984, was fired because, as former BJ cartoonist John Derf Backderf put it, “he refused to draw pro-Cheeto cartoons.”

Hillary got 75% of the Pittsburgh vote for President.

But John Robinson Block, whose family has owned the Pos-Gazette since the 1920s, and also owns the Toledo Blade, is an avid Trump supporter.

So the guy who owns the football decided who gets to stay on the team.

Ironically, Rob was curator of this 2003 national cartoon exhibition: “Too Hot to Handle: Creating Controversy Through Political Cartoons.”

In 1999 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

He is past president of the Association of American Political Cartoonists.

Oren Dorell a hit-and-run fatality

Oren Dorell, at the BJ 1998-2000 before he left for the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer and, later, 13 years at USA TODAY, was killed Friday by a hit-and-run driver who struck Dorell’s motorcycle.

D.C.’s Metropolitan Police arrested Daryl Grant, 47, on charges of second-degree murder, driving under the influence and fleeing the scene in his Toyota Camry.

Oren met his wife, Virginia "Ginny" Knapp Dorell, at the BJ. She was a copy editor.  They married in 2003. They have two sons, Malcolm, 12, and Leo, 11.

Oren began at USA TODAY as a breaking news reporter before his globetrotting foreign affairs beat.

Born in Canada in 1964, Oren lived in Bolivia and Philadelphia, but considered his home to be Haifa, Israel, where he lived from ages 5 to 12. 

Oren’s late father, Harold Dorell, was director of civil rights in the Federal Highway Administration Southeast Region 9 during the Reagan Administration. His job was to ensure that contractors who built the nation’s highways, tunnels, transit systems and light rail lines hired workers fairly, without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, sex or disability, in line with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Harold is a military veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Gevalt leaving Vermont project

Geoffrey Gevalt, former BJ assistant managing editor, is stepping down as director of the Young Writers Project he began in 2006 in Burlington, Vermont.

Geoffrey said the YWP worked with 110,000 children by reading or sharing their work, teaching and giving them feedback.

He will leave YWP at the end of June.

Geoffrey was at the BJ 1992-98.

In 2006 he left his job as managing editor at the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, where he first started in 2003, to head the Vermont Young Writers Project.