Staff reports

Wal­ter D. “Tom” Thom­son II, the for­mer pub­lisher of The Delaware Gazette and the man most cred­ited with mod­ern­iz­ing the Lit­tle Brown Jug har­ness race, has died. He was 73.

Thom­son, who had liver can­cer and was ill for sev­eral months, died Fri­day at home sur­rounded by his family.

Known for his com­mit­ment to the Delaware com­mu­nity, Thom­son served as pres­i­dent and pub­lisher of The Delaware Gazette until his retire­ment in 2001 and was rac­ing direc­tor for the Lit­tle Brown Jug for nearly 40 years.

Thom­son was the fifth gen­er­a­tion of his fam­ily to work at the then family-owned Gazette, the longest continuously-owned news­pa­per in the United States. It was pur­chased by Thomson’s great-great-grandfather in 1836. Thom­son, who started out as a news­pa­per deliv­ery boy, even­tu­ally saw his two sons — the sixth gen­er­a­tion — take over oper­a­tion of the paper. The fam­ily even­tu­ally sold the Gazette in 2004.

“He was really an advo­cate for free speech, the sun­shine laws, open meet­ing laws and power of the press” said his son, Thomas Thur­man “T” Thom­son. “He wanted the news to be out there that needed to be out there. I think that was key.”

Thom­son had a num­ber of accom­plish­ments through­out his life, includ­ing serv­ing as pres­i­dent of the Ohio News­pa­per Asso­ci­a­tion from 1996 to 1997, where he served on the board of direc­tors for many years. He received the association’s life­time achieve­ment award in 2001. He was a past pres­i­dent of the Ohio League of Home Daily’s. In 2001, Gov. Bob Taft rec­og­nized the Thom­son fam­ily with the “First Fam­ily of Ohio News­pa­pers” award.

“He would lis­ten to any­thing that any­one had to say,” “T” Thom­son said. “He wouldn’t make a snap judge­ment in busi­ness or in fam­ily. His deci­sions were always well thought-out. That’s kind of what he’ll be remem­bered for. And he has a legacy, of course, with the Gazette. We were one of the first papers of our size to go to off-site press … first to go to color. He had a good vision.”

“I knew Tom pro­fes­sion­ally and per­son­ally,” said Delaware Com­mu­nity Affairs Coor­di­na­tor Lee Yoakum, a for­mer Gazette sports writer and edi­tor who worked 12 years at the news­pa­per while Thom­son was publisher.

“I think he was the orig­i­nal, ‘World’s Most Inter­est­ing Man,’ in that one day he’d be enjoy­ing cof­fee and a cin­na­mon roll at the Ham­burger Inn and the next he’d be in Hong Kong for some news­pa­per gath­er­ing,” Yoakum said.

“I last saw Tom a cou­ple of weeks ago, on New Year’s Eve in (Grady Memo­r­ial Hospital’s) IC unit. He rec­og­nized me as soon as I entered his room. Despite being hooked up to all kinds of tubes and mon­i­tors, he asked how I was doing and what was going on in the city. To the end, he cared about his home town,” he said.

Thom­son had a pas­sion for jour­nal­ism, par­tic­u­larly home­town jour­nal­ism, Yoakum added.

“He con­stantly embraced new ways to col­lect, pro­duce and dis­trib­ute the news and chal­lenged all of us to do the same. In par­tic­u­lar, the news­room tech­nol­ogy and print­ing plant were top-notch for our paper our size.”

When he wasn’t busy with the news­pa­per, Thom­son was over­see­ing the Lit­tle Brown Jug, the mid­dle leg of the Pac­ing Triple Crown for 3-year-old Stan­dard­breds. Thom­son, the son of one of the Jug’s founders, Henry Clay “Hank” Thom­son, brought the Jug into the 21st Cen­tury, mod­ern­iz­ing the pac­ing clas­sic while work­ing to main­tain its quaint county fair charm.

“He wanted to keep the old small town feel of the Lit­tle Brown Jug,” “T” Thom­son said. “That’s why it was always at the fair and never moved to a larger race track. I am very proud of that fact — that 50,000 peo­ple come to Delaware on a Thurs­day after­noon to watch a horse race.”

From his posi­tion as rac­ing direc­tor for the Lit­tle Brown Jug, a title he held since 1973, Thom­son helped bring regional and national tele­vi­sion cov­er­age to the Jug, orga­niz­ing a simul­cast­ing oper­a­tion. In the 1980’s, Thom­son was instru­men­tal in mod­ern­iz­ing the fair’s wager­ing sys­tem, infra­struc­ture and was the dri­ving force in the build­ing of the all-weather track.

Thom­son served mul­ti­ple terms on the Delaware County Fair Board and was also a fix­ture in the posi­tion of pres­i­dent and trea­surer of the Lit­tle Brown Jug Soci­ety, which over­sees all aspects of the Lit­tle Brown Jug.

He also served as an ambas­sador for the sport as pres­i­dent of the Grand Cir­cuit, a posi­tion he held for 19 years. He was also a mem­ber of the board of trustees of the Har­ness Rac­ing Museum and Hall of Fame, into which he was inducted in 2005, and was also a mem­ber of the Ohio Har­ness Rac­ing Hall of Fame, inducted in 2004. In 2006, Thom­son was inducted into the Har­ness Rac­ing Hall of Fame in Goshen, N.Y.

The Thom­son fam­ily still plays a role in the Jug and the Delaware County Fair. Son Henry C. “Chip” Thom­son is on the Delaware County Fair Board, while son-in-law, Thomas Wright, helps with the Jug.

A life­long res­i­dent of Delaware, after grad­u­at­ing from Willis High School in 1956, Thom­son went on to grad­u­ate from The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity School of Jour­nal­ism. He was a mem­ber of the Delaware Eagles 376 and the Delaware Elks 76. In one his last pub­lic appear­ances in Octo­ber 2011, Thom­son was inducted into the Delaware City Schools Aca­d­e­mic Hall of Fame and received a Dis­tin­guished Alumni Award. He was a life­long mem­ber of the First Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Delaware.

He was born in 1938 to Henry Clay Thom­son II and Lil­lian Tracewell Thom­son. Thom­son is pre­ceded in death by his par­ents, his sis­ter Joy Thom­son, and his first wife, Helen Uffer­man Thomson.

The fam­ily will receive friends from noon to 2 p.m. Jan, 28, 2012 at Asbury United Methodist Church in Delaware. Memo­r­ial ser­vices will fol­low at 2 p.m. Pri­vate bur­ial will be held at Oak Grove Cemetery.

Memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to The Delaware County Fair, 236 Penn­syl­va­nia Ave., Delaware, OH 43015, or The Har­ness Rac­ing Hall of Fame and Museum, 240 Main St., Goshen, NY 10924.

Staff writer Kate Liebers con­tributed to the story.

This article appeared on the front page of the Delaware Gazette on 10/3/11

Last graduates of Willis High reunite after 50 years

From left, Terri Nor­ris Bischoff rem­i­nisces with Shirley Brimhall Welsh dur­ing the Willis High School 50-year class reunion. (Gazette | Kate Liebers)

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

Willis High School’s last grad­u­at­ing class came together over the week­end to cel­e­brate its 50th class reunion.

About 50 of the 125 grad­u­ates of 1961 attended the three-day event.

Between Fri­day drinks at The Jug, Sat­ur­day din­ner at Glen Ross Golf Club and Sun­day break­fast at Cor­ner Cafe, the class seemed to live up to its motto: All For Fun in ’61.

“It gets bet­ter every five years,” said Willis reunion com­mit­tee mem­ber Sandy Patrick Woods. “You lose all of the clique-type stuff.”

“Nobody cares whether you have the best shoes any­more,” Terri Nor­ris Bischoff added with a laugh.

Woods and Bischoff rep­re­sented a high school friend­ship that has, like so many year­book promises, truly lasted through­out the years. Both were on the home­com­ing court in 1961 and both now serve on the reunion committee.

Bischoff said every reunion gives the class the oppor­tu­nity to meet new peo­ple that they may not have known well in high school.

“And some have blos­somed into dif­fer­ent peo­ple,” Woods said.

The class rep­re­sented a his­toric moment for Delaware City Schools. The seniors of 1961 were the last to grad­u­ate from Willis, which has since become the district’s mid­dle school.

“I don’t think we gave it a lot of thought at the time,” Woods said of the group’s distinction.

“But we sure milk it now!” Bischoff added.

Also coin­ci­den­tally, both Bischoff’s and Wood’s fathers were part of Willis High School’s first class to com­plete all four grades at the building.

The tim­ing that most of the ’61 grad­u­ates seemed to con­sider more impor­tant was the pass­ing of 50 years since they got their diplomas.

“Yeah, think about that: 50 years out of high school,” mused John Rapp. “I can still remem­ber the good old days when I was play­ing football.”

Cur­rently resid­ing in Seat­tle, Wash., Rapp said he had never attended a reunion before this week­end. He was expected to have trav­eled the far­thest of any other class­mates to be part of the 50th one, though.

Aside from the growth of Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity, Rapp said Delaware seems to have changed lit­tle since he and his brother were work­ing their paper routes along San­dusky Street.

Rapp, now retired from the busi­ness of mak­ing elec­tronic equip­ment for med­ical com­pa­nies, rem­i­nisced about play­ing the elec­tric gui­tar for his band, The Invaders.

The drum­mer of that band, Tom Ack­ley, was at the reunion as well. He had also played for Rit­ual, which opened for The Who, Three Dog Night, and other renowned groups.

“He rocked the ceil­ing off of that old roof at Willis,” Bischoff said, com­pli­ment­ing Ackley’s per­for­mance of “When the Saints Go March­ing In.”

Ack­ley, now pres­i­dent of Med­ical Con­sul­tants of Amer­ica, Inc., joined a group of judges, doc­tors, busi­ness­men, teach­ers, marine biol­o­gists and oth­ers at the reunion.

The grad­u­ates also came from every direc­tion of the coun­try, said Judy Myers Rose­brough, who has kept the class in touch via monthly newsletters.

“Most have moved away, but we do have a healthy local con­tin­gent,” Rose­brough said.

Bischoff and Woods, for instance, moved out of state after high school but even­tu­ally moved back to Delaware.

“We couldn’t stay away,” Bischoff said.

“My hus­band got a job in Colum­bus, but I wanted to be near my fam­ily,” added Woods.

“And friends,” Bischoff said enthusiastically.

It seems to be a sim­i­lar story among other grad­u­ates. Many cred­ited the bond that the fel­low class­mates have kept to the small class size.

Rosebrough’s email newslet­ter, The Willis Grapevine, and web­site, Willis61.com, have also helped, the grad­u­ates agreed.

For other gen­er­a­tions, how­ever, Bischoff sus­pected that attend­ing reunions could be a thing of the past.

“My son teaches high school,” she said. “They don’t care about going back to reunions.”

Liz Amick Murt­feldt said their class spends a lot of time on the phone, some­thing youth today barely know how to use, the class­mates joked.

Shirley Brimhall Welsh, using the birth­day cal­en­dar pub­lished in The Willis Grapevine, even called every class­mate on their birth­day last year.

She said this also con­tributed to the classmate’s bond: not just acknowl­edg­ing their birth­days, but also by mak­ing the call.

Reflect­ing upon old high school mem­o­ries and the reunion’s new ones, Bischoff advised upcom­ing grad­u­ates to trea­sure their friends.

“Even though four years are such a small part of your life, they make it who you are,” she said.

Bischoff empha­sized the impor­tance of keep­ing in touch — and more so than through social net­works. As the long-time friends said, rela­tion­ships are kept by pick­ing up the phone.