Judy,
Thanks for the invitation. I have been with The Delaware Gazette and The Sunbury News for a total of 41 years, 33 with the Gazette as sports writer and sports editor, becoming sports editor in 1973. In 2000, I had the opportunity to become managing editor of the News where I serve the dual role of editor and sports writer, covering Big Walnut High School athletics. As managing editor, I am responsible for story assignments, page layout, including pictures, and e-mailing the pages to our printing facility in Mt. Gilead.
An interesting sidelight to my career in journalism -- I attended Ohio Wesleyan and graduated from Bliss Business College in Columbus with a degree in accounting. Following graduation I was job hunting, and through the recommendation of Paul Keller (seventh and eighth grade math teacher at Willis), I had the opportunity to fill in for the Gazette Sports Editor for two weeks while he was on vacation (I had some writing experience with Sports Information at Ohio Wesleyan). On what was to be my last day, then-Gazette publisher Hank Thomson asked me if I would like to stay on with the Gazette. Since I had been looking for employment, I couldn’t say no and two weeks turned into 41 years.
My duties as Sports Editor at the Gazette not only involved covering games (at last count I have covered more than 500 football games and over 1,000 basketball games), but editing copy, writing headlines, picking out photographs and laying out pages.
I have had the opportunity to cover many things with the Gazette, including Ohio State football, the Cleveland Indians, OWU's 1988 Men’s Basketball National Championship season, the 2007 Big Walnut State Football Championship season, and, of course, The Little Brown Jug.
But my fondest memories come from 33 years covering the Pacers, including Jerry Cornell’s 1969 OCC Championship season, Frank Dalton’s perennial OCC girls' basketball championship teams, boys' basketball teams winning championships with Dan Baker, Roy Henderson and Larry Eberst, Ed Starling’s baseball teams and Jim Warbel’s softball teams as well as the careers of Rick Middleton, Tim Williams, Ed Matthews, John Maiden, Travis Dalton, Liana Coutts, Andy Brown, Krista Jacobs, Stacey Reed, Jay Coffman, Brandy Hamm and many, many more who I had the pleasure of covering.
Looking back as a graduate of Delaware Willis, I was fortunate to have excellent teachers, teachers who were willing to help one-on-one when you needed it. I don’t think I could have received a better education than I did at Willis.
During my years at the Gazette I had the opportunity to work with many interns, mainly from Hayes and OWU. Among them were Hayes graduates Mark Beckenbach (Sports Information Director at Ohio Wesleyan), Barry Smith ( the last I knew Barry was Sports Information Director at Long Beach (Cal.) State), and Steve Blackledge and Ken Gordon (sports writers with The Columbus Dispatch). Tom Jolly, an OWU graduate, is Sports Editor of The New York Times.
I married Sandra Sanderlin (Bishop Harley 1964) in 1979 and we have been happily married for 29 years. Unfortunately we have no children, just a spoiled cat named Snow. I did have one health issue in 2003. We discovered I had cancer of the esophagus. Fortunately it was caught in time. The treatment involved removal of my esophagus and stretching my stomach to my throat as a replacement ... no chemo, no radiation. As a result, I am cancer-free.
As far as retirement, I plan to work as long as the current owners, Brown Publishing out of Tipp City, will have me. It’s still a joy to come to work every day, exasperating at times, but still fun. I think I would have been bored to death if I had continued to pursue a career in accounting.
It has been a fun 41 years ... 41 years of meeting people I never dreamed of meeting (Woody Hayes, Earle Bruce, Fred Taylor, Frank Shannon, Gene Mehaffey, Mike Hollway, Nan Carney-DeBord, Jerry Cornell, Dan Baker, Ray Middleton, Dick Meyer, Frank Robinson, Mike Hargrove, Jesse Owens, Omar Vizquel, Manny Ramirez, etc.) and attending events I would never otherwise have had the opportunity to attend.
Gary Henery
Managing Editor
The Sunbury News