Harry Liggett, last of State Desk legends, dies

BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96)

This is the saddest BJ Alums article I will ever post. Eric Poston put this on his Facebook page:

Sad to announce that my great uncle Harry Liggett passed away this morning. He was a very talented individual who worked for the Akron Beacon Journal for many years. I had developed a very good relationship with him as I would always visit with him when I went to mow his yard. He taught me a lot and I will greatly miss him.

Harry's son, Bob Liggett posted this memory:

For me it was always the small things that mattered. As a young boy my Dad used to take me to the Beacon Journal and let me run around like a wild Indian. Seeing the printing presses was always very cool. Will never forget that. Today there is no more suffering. Today my Dad took his last breath. I firmly believe that he is at peace and he is reunited with my Mom. RIP Dad. I love you very much!

Calling hours Tuesday, Jan. 28 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Anthony Funeral Homes, 1990 South Main Street, Akron 44301. Prayers at the funeral home 10 a.m. Wednesday followed by Mass at St. Paul Catholic Church on Brown Street in Akron.

Harry had been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes since his August surgeries related mostly to his cancer. That was not long after Ohio State graduate Harry was among six who graduated from Harry attended their Dennison High School reunion in July 2013.

BJ newsroom retiree Harry Liggett was the founder of the BJ Alums blog. He ran it the way he did his job at the BJ: Ferocious, determined, gruff but a damned good journalist. 

Harry and the late Pat Engelhart, State Desk editor while Harry and I were his assistant editors, taught me more about how to be a good newspaper editor than I had learned in all my previous years. And I was 38 when I came to the BJ, so I had 16 years of experience already.

Reporters who tried to fake their way through a story learned to regret it. Harry would check the facts himself, then call the reporter over. Woe be the reporter who had NOT checked the facts as well as Harry did.

Pat Englehart, who died in Florida in 1995, was the whirlwind commander; Harry came along and reorganized the debris. Frances B. Murphey, in her bib overalls, completed the legendary trio. Now Harry has joined them, and John S. Knight, in That Newspaper in the Sky.

It was the best of times. I ran to work because it was so much fun. It was a time when Fran's "Go to Hell!" and Pat's "you talk like a man with a paper asshole" were loving, endearing terms. 

Harry also was a fierce Newpaper Guild president. When he slammed the door as he stormed out of a negotiations session with management, the sound was heard all the way to Miami. Harry got his concession for his co-workers.

Harry was a long-time member of St. Paul Catholic Church on Brown Street in Akron and lived on Firestone Boulevard.

The great love of Harry's life was Helen Smolak Liggett, daughter of Czech immigrants. She passed away June 26, 2010. She was born Nov. 15, 1930 in Perry Township in Carroll County. Helen was a 1948 graduate of Immaculate Conception High School in Dennison. She is buried in Akron's Holy Cross Cemetery. I'm sure Harry will be alongside her, as he was throughout life.

Harry and Helen were married in the Immaculate Conception Church in 1956. They moved to Akron when Harry was hired by the Beacon Journal in 1965. 

Since Helen's death, Harry's Facebook page had been adorned with photos of Helen and her beloved flowers on the Liggett property and tributes to her from Harry.

Harry and Helen have two sons.

Tom Liggett is Community Pregnancy Center director of development and a graduate of Hoban High and the University of Akron. He is married to Susan and lives in Akron. Bob is scheduled to perform with the Straight On - Heart Tribute Band, the opening band Feb. 8 at the Civic Theatre for Zoso, the “ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience.” 

Bob Liggett works at KeyCorp. He also is a Hoban and University of Akron graduate, in accounting. Bob lives in Akron. Bob is scheduled to perform with the Straight On - Heart Tribute Band, the opening band Feb. 8 at the Civic Theatre for Zoso, the “ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience.” 

RIP, Harry. No one ever deserved pain-free peace more.

Buchtelite suspends publication

Former BJ and PD editor Roger Mezger, The Buchtelite advisor, announced that the 125-year-old University of Akron student newspaper has suspended its twice-weekly publication.

Staff members are leaving faster than they can be replaced, Roger writes. The student newspaper faces the same challenge of being relevant in a digital age as the BJ and the PD, both of which have undergone draconian changes and massive layoffs.

To read Roger's announcement, click on http://www.buchtelite.com/

Connie Bloom giving threadpainting demo

Connie explaining quilt art

Former Beacon Journal features department editor/columnist Connie Bloom, known throughout the quilt art world in Ohio, will give a threadpainting demonstration in her Artspace studio at 2 p.m. Saturday -- 140 E. Market Street, downtown Akron, 3rd floor. 

Writes Connie:

"Learn about threads, needles and surfaces for stitching. Also oil painting demo at 1 and photography at 3. Come for the afternoon! Free!"

If you want more information, Connie's phone number is (330) 472-0161. The demo is free. 

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

Connie married Bob Shields in 2008. They have been together for more than a decade. 

A tale of two pities

BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96)

The Beacon Journal banner at the bottom of Page A2 each day lists 16 "generals" -- including editor Bruce Winges, Managing Editor Doug Oplinger, Business News chief Larry Pantages, Editorial/Letters honcho Michael Douglas, Features Editor Lynne Sherwin, Local News' Rich Desrosiers, National Editor Joe Thomas, Photography's Kimberly Barth and Sports' Ron Ledgard.

That nine Newsroom leaders. For 69 privates and corporals on the BJ's staff list, including clerks. That's 7.7 chiefs for every Indian. Although columnist Bob Dyer probably isn't very controllable even by the generals or chiefs. When you're the best writer on the newspaper, you can be a little more independent than the others. Although Mark J. Price does give Bob a run for his writing money. 

Compare the 78 to 1984, when there were 128 with at least 25 years of service among the 754 BJ employees from the pressroom to the third floor.

As recently as 2005 there were 21 BJ folks who were honored for being with the company 15 to 35 years. Mind you, that didn't include those who had been there more than 35 years, or 34-31, 29-26, 24-21, 19-16 and 14 or fewer years. I enjoyed 26 years at the BJ myself. 

That pretty well encapsulates the disintigration of the BJ staff, which is in line with what has happened all over the country because newspaper owners failed to get in front of the Internet revolution till it was too late.

Again, this is NOT a knock on former co-workers and others still working at the BJ. I feel for them, particularly Managing Editor Doug Oplinger, Columnist Bob Dyer and husband/wife reporters Jim Carney and Katie Byard who have lived through the apex of the BJ's existence and now have to endure the nadir. 

They are not responsible for the demise of the BJ. Tony Ritter and his breed are, mainly because they out-lived John S. Knight, the best newspaper owner I ever worked with. The quest for more yachts to house expensive parties instead of improving the newspapers' place in the communications world sank the BJ and other papers.

Newspapers once had the best of times. Now they are in the worst of times. This is a tale of two pities: For the newspapers themselves and for those who have to endure today's situation after riding high during the glory years.

Harry Liggett going to hospice facility

Really sad news from Bob Liggett about his father, BJ Alums blog founder and BJ newsroom retiree Harry Liggett:

"Feeling down and sad today Dad is being transferred to a Hospice facility today."

Added son Tom Liggett:

"My brother and I have decided after consulting his team of doctors to have dad moved to hospice. This is now in Higher Hands."

Harry has been dealing with his cancer-related health problems, and has been in and out of Akron General Hospital and Copley Health Center nursing home several times, since his surgeries in August 2013. 

Another quake for Cathy Strong

1970s State Desk reporter Cathy Strong, who created the journalism master's degree program for Massey University campus in Wellington, New Zealand, is dealing with another earthquake.

Cathy's Facebook post:

Cathy Strong

"6.3 earthquake hit on the other side of the island (near where (daughter) Penelope and John are having their wedding). I have broken glass all over my house at the moment. AND there have been 15 more earthquakes since then, which was 58 minutes ago. Wish us luck.

There were rock falls, chimneys crumbled, windows broken, slips on highways, mainly in the Wairarapa area, but, as earthquakes go in New Zealand, this one wasn't anywhere near The Big One that folks in California talk about.

The region was shaken by two large quakes of magnitude 6.9 and 6.5 August and September last year, which caused moderate damage to buildings and infrastructure, and minor injuries.

New Zealand sits on the boundary of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, and records more than 14,000 earthquakes a year.


In August 2013 Cathy had to deal with a 6.5-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter near the northern tip of the South Island, 14 miles south of the town of Blenheim. Cathy works in Wellington, which is on the southern tip of the North Island, and lives on Te Horo Beach, which is about an hour north of Wellington. New Zealand is made up of the two large islands.

In February 2011, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake toppled buildings in the South Island city of Christchurch, killing 185 people and injuring several thousand. 

Harry Liggett back in hospital

BJ newsroom retiree Harry Liggett, founder of the BJ Alums blog, has been hospitalized again.

Harry's son, Bob Liggett, wrote:

Dad is back in Akron General. They did more testing and the cancer has come back. It has spread some. Hopefully we will talk with oncology early this week. 

Harry has been dealing with his health problems, and has been in and out of Akron General Hospital and Copley Health Center nursing home several times, since his surgeries in August 2013. 

Son Bob posted this late Monday night:

A stressful and sad realization day. For the time being things appear to get worse. Ugh!

Harry Liggett's son in Feb. 8 Civic Theatre concert

Straight On - Heart Tribute Band, which will include BJ newsroom retiree Harry Liggett’s son, Tom Liggett, will be the opening band Feb. 8 at the Civic Theatre for Zoso, the “ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience.” The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday. Feb. 8.

Formed in 1995, each Zoso member was selected to portray both the appearance and playing styles of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones.

Harry remains at Copley Health Center after health problems that began with Akron General Hospital surgeries last August.

Carney's grandpa gets headstone -- 90 years after death

The headstone of the grave of BJ reporter Jim Carney’s grandfather has been erected 90 years after his death.

Explains Jim:

“Headstone for my grandfather, Raymond M. Carney, from the VA, installed today at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Wheeling, WV. His grave was unmarked for nearly 90 years until today.

“Luckily, I found his discharge papers in a box in our crazy basement. My father was 3 years old when his father died and he had no memory of him at all. Much thanks to the VA.”

I wonder what else is struggling to be found in Jim and wife Katie Byard’s Akron basement?

VA is the Veterans Administration.

Mount Calvary Cemetery is at 1685 National Road in Wheeling, not far from Oglebay Resorts and its famed Festival of Lights, six miles of holiday scenes visible in November and December.

The National Road aka Cumberland Road (roughly followed by U.S. 40 today) was the first major improved road to be built by the federal government, starting in 1811, and eventually ran 620 miles from Cumberland, Maryland and through Wheeling to Vandalia, Illinois before the project ran out of money. 

Charles Ellet, Jr.’s 1,010-foot Wheeling Suspension Bridge, at the time the longest bridge span, accommodated the National Road. The bridge still is there, albeit spruced up from time to time.

Later, Jim added this postscript:

"John

Our basement is quite insane. We have been trying to sort out clutter and moved a lot of stuff to the basement last winter. Later this year we hope to sift through the basement again. 

"It was really a stroke of luck to have found the papers. I had my grandfather's two round metal dog tags and a paper from a life insurance company that congratulated him for his service. He served with an aviation unit in England. But I did not have the discharge papers which I think were required. So finding them was a huge thing. 

"While covering something at the Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery in the fall -- the government shutdown -- I asked the director about getting headstones for vets. He told me to look on line. I did and got the form. 

"I called the cemetery and spoke to Becky Breiding there who asked me to send her the form. I sent in the info to the cemetery including photo copies of his dog tag. She then sent the paperwork to the VA. So it took less than three months. 

"She called me the morning it arrived and then sent photos of it in place. I still have not received any paperwork from the VA but she said that often comes after the stone is sent out." 

Nobody home in PD newsroom because they're all at home

The Plain Dealer, reduced to 95 editorial and production employees, has abandoned the 1999 building it constructed for 1,000 workers and reverted to Backpack Journalism, a Columbia Journalism Review article says.

Most of the paper’s reporters and editors will relocate to Tower City Center in downtown Cleveland, above Cleveland’s Hard Rock Café. 30 to 40 designers, editors and print production staff will move to the company’s printing and distribution plant in the Cleveland suburbs. Northeast Ohio Media Group will move its employees into renovated space at the Superior Avenue building.

Reporters are filing stories directly, without editors editing, and writing their own headlines. The PD is encouraging reporters to work out of their homes with a laptop and a backpack. No desks. Anywhere. 

Debra Adams Simmons, who left the BJ in 2007 to become PD managing editor, is the PD editor. She replaced Susan Goldberg in that position in 2010.

For more information, click on http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/newsroom_culture_is_gone_at_cleveland_plain_dealer.php?page=all

Cathy Strong knows how to enjoy life

1970s State Desk reporter Cathy Strong is one broad who knows how to have fun.

That's Cathy on the right in the attached photo, as winner of the Best Hat award at the Otaki Race Meet in New Zealand. Otaki is about 40 miles from Wellington, where Cathy created the masters program in journalism at Massey University's campus, and about the same distance from the village beach home Cathy has a few miles from Wellington.

Cathy has snowboarded (good enough to be an instructor although she did crack her ribs doing that once) and water-skiied and kayaked (and gotten serious sunburn) in New Zealand, and she has joined another former 1970s State Desk reporter, North Canton Hoover High retired teacher Pam McCarthy, in a hot tub at their Boston reunion a few years back.

She slipped on a stairwell in 2009 and broke her foot during her three years teaching journalism in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. UAE is a federation of seven independent states in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

She survived a 6.5 earthquake in Wellington, New Zealand.

She's been to Kenya and Tonga, and given journalism seminars in Taiwan.

She marries off her daughters and collects grandchildren, in that order. 

Cathy's daughter, Rebecca, and husband Dion, have three daughters and a son. Rebecca and Dion were married in 2005 in the tiny historic Pukekaraka St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Otaki, the town where Cathy won the Best Hat award. 

The church in Otaki is the oldest church in New Zealand and combines the Maori culture of 1850 and the Catholic culture of the French Marist missionary priests.

Rebecca is a hydrographer and lieutenant in the New Zealand Navy and her husband, Lt. Dion Hewson, is also a lieutenant in the Navy.  

Cathy and former husband Percy Strong also have daughters Amanda and Penelope. Amanda married Jeff Shima near Waiouru, New Zealand in 2013. They have a daughter. Penolope is an administrator at a Boston law firm  who will wed international patent attorney John Pint originally from Minnesota in about a month.

 
Cathy also is an excellent host, entertaining former BJ photographer Don Roese and his wife Maryann at her New Zealand home for a week or so, then flying up to Auckland to meet retired BJ State Desk assistant editor John Olesky and another former 1970s State Desk reporter, Paula Tucker, to take them on a tour of Auckland before Paula and John began their 3 weeks in New Zealand and Australia.

If you want to phone Cathy, her New Zealand office number is  021 2172112. Don't be surprised if you get her VoiceMail. This is one busy broad!

BJ retiree Connie Bloom among 8 Artspace artists in first-time show

Connie Bloom explaining her quilt art technique

Former BJ Features Department editor/columnist and Ohio quilt art guru Connie Bloom will be among eight local artists featured in the Summit Artspace art show, Upstairs, Downstairs, that will open at 5-8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17 with a reception for the artists and will run through Feb. 22 (noon-5 p.m. Friday and Saturdays, noon-9 p.m. Thursdays).

Connie organized the show. Other artists, all Penthouse Artists in Summit Artspace, are Joan Colbert (printmaking); Cari Miller (mixed-media); Terry Klausman (sculpture/drawing); Carolyn Lewis (painting); Katina Pastis Radwanski (painting/sculpture); Bradley Hart (photography); and Ron White (sculpture/drawing).

There are nearly 600 Swarovski crystals in Connie’s art quilt Magic Realism (photo with this article), featured in Upstairs, Downstairs. There will be  nosh, casual conversation and art at Summit Artspace, 140 E. Market Street,  downtown Akron.

Connie will open her studio in Summit Artspace at other times to shoppers if you arrange an appointment in advance at 330-472-0161.

Summit ArtSpace Gallery opened more than a decade ago. This is the first time that ArtSpace artists have had a group show in the gallery. Admission and parking are free.

If you pre-register, you can take part in artist demos and hands-on workshops, mainly on the third floor in the artists’ studios.

Saturday, January 25
Artist Demonstrations 
1 p.m. — Landscape Painting with Carolyn E. Lewis
2 p.m. — Threadpainting with Connie Bloom
3 p.m. — Envisioning a Successful Photograph with Bradley Hart

Saturday February 8    
1 p.m. — Be My Valentine Make & Take with Joan Colbert, Cari Miller and Terry Klausman (pre-register please)

Saturday February 15  
1 p.m. — Yoga in the Summit Artspace Gallery with Ron White
2 p.m. — Chakra Art Workshop with Ron White and Joan Colbert (pre-register please)

What deserves more coverage: NJ traffic jam or 300,000 West Virginians with contaminated water?

WCHS-TV reporter Kallie Cart, 33 weeks pregnant, drew national attention for pushing back against the president of Freedom Industries, who answered a few questions about his company’s role in a chemical spill that affected the drinking water of 300,000 people in West Virginia, sipped a little bottled water, then tried to get away.

But Cart wasn’t having it. “We have more questions,” she called out. “Hey, hey, hey, hey. N-no. We’re not done.”

Amazingly, Southern turned back for more.

The attention Cart’s gotten for that moment has been flattering, as well as humbling and overwhelming, she said.

But West Virginia reporters also are disappointed that the national media is paying more attention to New Jersey governor Chris Christie and the artificially created traffic jam to get even with another politician, The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox wrote. 

Apparently disasters in West Virginia are too common, she wrote. 

Plus Christie is the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2016.

To read the entire Poynter.com article, click on http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/236019/while-national-media-focuses-on-bridgegate-w-va-reporters-stay-on-water-story/

McBane on state of newspapers today

Dick McBane, who retired as a BJ reporter in 1997 and lives in Lilburn, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb five miles from Stone Mountain State Park, comments on the state of newspapers in today’s Internet world:

John:

    As an old news man, it is sad to see the newspapers on the decline, here as everywhere else. The Atlanta Journal Constitution published a Gwinnett County edition when we first moved here. When it dropped the Gwinnett County edition I dropped the Constitution in favor of the Gwinnett Daily Post, a local publication that seems to understand its role in the news geography of the area. It is generally well-written and well-edited, but it too is in the downward spiral. The quality is still good, but it dropped its Monday edition, and now it is also dropping Tuesday and will have a combined Saturday-Sunday edition, so, while it continues in name to be the Daily Post it will, in fact, be published just four days a week.

Dick McBane

    It makes me value my years at the Beacon Journal and the Marietta, Ohio, Times, even more.

    At the old BJ we worked for the best newspaper in the country (and I really do mean that) at a time when it meant something.

        Dick 

I second Dick’s definition of the BJ as one of the great newspapers in America when we both worked there (not that our being there was the only reason that happened). I put the credit squarely on John S. Knight, who was an editor in fact and at heart and knew there was more than bottom-line financial considerations to running a great newspaper. JSK valued the newspaper carrier as much as he did his editors, and everyone in between.

I think someone told me that Jack considered merging with the Ridder family/corporation the worst mistake of his career.

I felt really sorry for those so loyal to the BJ and the Knight corporation that they kept their KNI/later KRI stock. For some, a peak of $300,000 in stock value plummeted to $40,000 in their retirement, when they needed it the most.

I didn’t get caught in that. When McClatchy finally bought what was barely breathing of KRI, I got ONE share of McClathy stock in the exchange. 

I long ago had sold the KRI stock when the stench of Ridder all over it became so unbearable, and built up a nest egg of utility dividends that go nicely with my BJ pension and Social Security check and stock portfolio. It helps pay for my world travels to 52 countries and 43 states. 

Not smart; just lucky.

Dick – an excellent, detailed reporter during his time at the BJ -- and I aren’t the only ones saddened by the demise of newspapers, including the BJ. I mean, we loved the ol’ gal. I ran to work every day because JSK, Ben Maidenburg and Pat Englehart made it so much fun.

And we don’t blame those left at the BJ, other than the Canadian management, because they are doing their best in a deplorable situation, particularly in comparison to what we had during our time at 44 E. Exchange Street. There are talented people left, like Bob Dyer, Mark Price and Jim Carney. But when you eliminate 60% or more of the staff, keeping up the quality level is a mountain that it’s unrealistic to expect to conquer.

Change is inevitable. Improvement isn’t always the result. The demise of newspapers is another example of corporate management not getting ahead of and becoming a vital part of the Internet avalanche instead of being spectators as it swallowed up their profits and readers.

-     - - John Olesky, BJ 1969-96

Free joint replacements!

Jerri Eady Combs very ill

Cheryl Scott Sheinin, who retired after 45 years in the BJ Finance Department, posted this Facebook request:

Jerri Eady Combs

“Those of you who work or have worked at the Beacon Journal. Please pray for Jerri Eady Combs. She is very ill and has been for some time now. I'm sure she would appreciate your prayful support.”

Jerri Eady Combs once was BJ administrative assistant in the Finance Department before she became Human Resources manager and administrative/executive assistant at the W.L. Jenkins Company. She is a Hammel Actual Business College graduate.

Cheryl is the wife of former BJ staffer Neil Sheinin.

Dick McBane chimes in on publishing police blotter

The BJ Alums article this week on newspapers dropping the publication of police blotters stirred memories in Dick McBane, who retired as a BJ reporter in 1997 and lives in Lilburn, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb five miles from Stone Mountain State Park.

Wrote Dick:

John ---

Dropping publication of police blotters, or related items, certainly makes sense because it is virtually impossible to keep track of every case without direct access to the court records.

When I was first covering the courts for the BJ in 1967, the policy was to publish the complete list of indictments whenever the grand jury returned its report. 

The trouble with that was the indictments included the name and crime charged, but not the age or address of the accused. In essence, that meant checking every case file to include the necessary information. 

I believe the BJ dropped the indictments as impractical shortly after that and we concentrated on the major cases.

But, while we were still doing the indictments I was working late one night when I got a call from a man who had been indicted for sodomy. He complained that he had never engaged in sex with an animal. 

I had a copy of the Ohio criminal code handy and read him the legal definition of the term and before I had finished he was saying, "yeah," "okay," "I did that." 

Of course, that didn't count as a confession and my memory isn't good enough to recall how his case actually turned out.

While I had my share of major cases covering the Summit County Common Pleas Court for the BJ, the most bizarre ones were from the Marietta, Ohio, municipal court when I was working for the Marietta Daily Times. 

One involved a fellow charged with leaving the scene of an accident. It seems he was parked on a remote country road making out with a female when a car pulled up behind him and his paramour. That car was driven by the woman's husband.

Before anything else could happen, the lover backed into the husband's car and then drove off. In court, he claimed his action was taken in self-defense. While he won a certain amount of sympathy, he was still found guilty, even if the collision wasn't really an accident.

--- Dick

Dick and wife Marilynn observed their 51^st wedding anniversary last October. They lived in the same Akron house for 37 years before moving to Georgia.

Dick and Marilynn live near their oldest son, Lachlan, wife Cheryl and their three sons and one daughter.

“Our younger son, Roderick, went to the University of Houston, discovered he could play softball year-round, and still lives in a Houston suburb" with wife Cindy and sons William, 4, and Connor, 2. "They were with us in Georgia for Christmas," Dick reports. "While a good time was had by all, it was a bit exhausting for me and Marilynn."

As the great-grandfather of 4- and 2-year-old boys, Dick, I can echo those sentiments. They are whirlwinds at that age, but invigorating -- and exhausting -- to be around.

“Lachlan is a violist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Roderick is a math professor at Houston Community College,” Dick writes. 

In 2005 and despite Hurricane Katrina bashing New Orleans, Roderick married Cindy Wagner in Albany, Louisiana, on Saturday, Sept. 3. At that time Roderick was an actuary with the American National Insurance Co. in Galveston, Texas. Cindy was an accountant in Houston, Texas.

Albany, Cindy's hometown, was roughly 50 miles north of New Orleans, suffered relatively little damage, but electric power had not been fully restored by the time of the wedding. So the ceremony was moved to a church that had power (and air-conditioning).

Dick has visited many of the minor league baseball parks in this country and has written books about the minor league days, including "Glory Days: The Akron Yankees of the Middle Atlantic League 1935-41" and "A Fine-Looking Lot of Ball Tossers" about the independent Akron professional team of 1881. He is a member of Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Dick retired from the BJ on the same day as the late Don Bandy, the superb rewrite man who retired to Bradenton, Florida and took part in some of the Siesta Key reunions involving retired BJ editors, reporters and printers.

Dick was among the five BJ Guild retirees who won the healthcare lawsuit against the BJ in 2012 and had their benefits restored to retirement-day levels on Jan. 1, 2013 and were reimbursed for the difference between their retirement-day healthcare coverage and what Canadian David Black tried to impose on them in 2007.

Forty-five retired printers also benefitted from the lawsuit, which began when the late Dave White and his widow, Gina White, put up $2,500 to get the ball rolling. Gina still lives in Venice, Florida, about 15 miles south of the Sarasota home they had owned for decades.

No escaping 'cold torture' for Art & Char

Art Krummel, retired BJ art department chief, and wife Charlene Nevada, retired BJ reporter, left their Tallmadge home early this year because they were fed up with the Northeast Ohio winter.

But weather-caused problems aren’t that easy to avoid.

Let Art explain:

“The minus zero weather ran us out of Ohio earlier than usual this year. We headed south Wednesday. We arrived in Garden City today to find 55 degrees, which seemed balmy. Then we went inside the house and discovered our furnace broke! A chilly 45 inside. This is the year of cold torture. We can't escape it.”

Art and Char bought a second home in Garden City, South Carolina, in 2010. Garden City is 85 miles north of Charleston, South Carolina, 11 miles south of Myrtle Beach and 13 miles from Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where retired BJ printer Dick Latshaw and his wife Pat and BJ business department retiree Harold McElroy’s widow, Linda, live a few blocks apart.

Later, Art reported that the furnace had been fixed and that an outside temperature in the 60s was promised.

Names dropped for lesser crimes on newspaper police blotter

Some newspapers, with radically reduced staffs unable to follow up on the disposition of cases, are dropping names from their police blotters for lesser crimes. They still report the crimes so that readers will know the areas involved.

The late State Desk Editor, Pat Englehart, made it a point for his staff to keep track of every crime reported in the BJ and to check regularly on the disposition of the case. He felt it was unfair to name a person at the time of his arrest or indictment, then not notify the BJ readers if the case were dropped or the person were found innocent. 

But it was impossible to follow every arrest reported and let the BJ readers know how it turned out because it often takes months from arrest to resolution.

The University of Connecticut and University of Miami at Oxford, Ohio student newspapers have stopped naming those arrested for lesser crimes.

Technology and Google and the social media have greatly expanded the problem. 

The names of those arrested remain out there forever, but the disposition often doesn’t show up in the search. So a person found innocent or having the charges dropped or reduced shows up on Google the same as the person found guilty. And Google searchers don’t know how the cases turned out.

Worse, potential employers – who more and more use social media to check on prospective employees – see the arrest but not the disposition.

Mainstream papers such as the Palm Beach, Florida Post and the Chattanooga, Tennessee Free Press and Times continue to publish names of those arrested.

To read Gail Macdonald’s entire article, click on http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/235493/college-papers-dropping-arrestee-names-from-crime-blotters/

Mike Williams in Ecuador for 75 days this time

Apparently BJ Advertising Art retiree Mike Williams (BJ 1968-2012) likes Ecuador because he’s there again, this time for 75 days (Mike and wife Jane were there in early 2013 including a trek up the Andes Mountains). 

Blissful Mike Williams in Ecuador

Apparently the troubles that Mike and Jane had with the altitude didn’t keep them from going back. Jane is Mike’s interpreter for the Spanish because “she speaks it much better than me,” Mike said.

Reports Mike:

John - looking at 75 days or so. May visit Peru, but there is plenty to see here in EC.

Mike is in Cuenca, Ecuador in the photo. That's an altitude of 8,400 feet and looking at scenery that's up to 13,000 feet.

The average January temperature in Ecuador is highs in the 60s, much better than in Northeast Ohio.

Mike and Jane, married 25 years, have two sons, independent trucker Nathan Williams (they keep track of where he is via SmartPhone’s locator) and chemical engineer Trevor Williams. Mike retired in December 2012 after 44 years, including coming under John Grimm’s wing in 1976.

Mike Williams, John Olesky
discuss travels in 2013

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 Mgr. 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 then (her birthday is in early August).  Helen Becton, manager in the phone room at the time, got a two-fer:  Linda's twin Cindy Williams started at the same time.

If you have travel news about your trips, preferably with jpeg photos, email the information and the jpeg photos to John Olesky at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com Thank you.