Publisher on the mend, baby’s here, reporters to be missed

TONY DODERO

The newsroom received a number of phone calls and e-mails Friday in

response to Publisher Tom Johnson’s column about his brother donating

his kidney to him.

“Tom’s column was one of the most beautiful ever run in the

Pilot,” said one high-ranking company executive in an e-mail to me

Friday.

I have to agree, and it left many searching for tissues after

reading it.

But there is no reason for tears. I’m happy to report that surgery

was successful and both Tom and his brother, Cliff, who donated the

kidney, are doing fine.

Tom Johnson suffers from polycystic kidney disease and for years

has had to get by while his kidneys were not at their best.

About a year ago, he told me that tests showed his kidneys were

operating at 20% of their usual capacity, which I’m sure was much

less by Friday. But that never seemed to stop him. Anyone who knows

Tom will attest to his high energy level and utmost commitment to

this newspaper and this community. The weeks and days before his

surgery, even though he was feeling pretty tired, he was in planning

meetings on major projects and attending a number of local functions.

Though Tom’s background has mostly been in advertising, he’s also

a stickler for the news content in the paper, trust me. I know the

day is not off to a good start when Tom walks in my office with a

grimace on his face and the paper is rolled up in one hand.

His penchant for top quality once prompted Managing Editor S.J.

Cahn to quip:

“Imagine how he’s going to kick our (fill in the blank) when his

kidneys are 100%.”

Task master or not, I look forward to that day when Tom is back.

As former Sports Editor Roger Carlson said in an e-mail, Tom

Johnson is the “heart and soul” of the Daily Pilot.

We are all better because of him.

Hurry back my friend. We have work to do.

*

The hospital news doesn’t stop there. Daily Pilot Features Editor

James Lee rushed into my office Friday afternoon and said he had to

go because there was an emergency with his wife, Danielle.

Danielle was pregnant with their second child, expected at the end

of the month.

Guess the baby was done waiting because James called later to

announce the birth of little Emma Grace Lee. Emma, born four weeks

early, weighed in at 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19 inches long.

Mom Danielle is doing fine, dad is tired and big brother Jimmy, 4,

is looking forward to having a little sister.

Congratulations to all of them.

*

I have less happy news to report with the departure of two of our

veteran news reporters, Deepa Bharath and Deirdre Newman, both of

whom won national awards for their reporting and writing while they

were here.

Deepa, who came to us from the Orange County Register’s community

papers more than five years ago, accepted a job with the Daily Breeze

in Torrance.

Deepa, who covered public safety and courts, was in attendance at

a number of high-profile trials such as that of Greg Haidl, the son

of the former Orange County assistant sheriff accused of a multitude

of misdeeds; Greg Bechler, the Newport Heights man accused of killing

his wife and dumping her body at sea on their anniversary; and Steven

Abrams, the troubled killer who drove his car into a preschool,

killing two children and injuring many others.

Deepa was part of the Daily Pilot’s most extensive road trip in my

tenure, a trip to Ecuador with the good doctors and staff of the

Plasticos Foundation, who perform surgical miracles in the Third

World.

And she single-handedly turned our Living Memories obituary

feature into a must-read on Sunday.

Deirdre, who started the week before the Sept. 11 attacks, took a

job with the Californian, a daily paper that covers Temecula and is

part of the North County Times in San Diego.

Deirdre covered schools and government for us and made her mark

right away with the infamous cheerleader story at Newport Harbor

High, in which some of the girls made waves after they didn’t make

the team and the cheer coach lost her job.

Deirdre developed a reputation for her tough questions and

thorough reporting and took that from the schools to city hall, where

she covered the Centerline issue, the city attorney debacle in Costa

Mesa, the fight over industrial land on Costa Mesa’s Westside,

elections in both cities and the Marinapark hotel project.

She also dealt with the tragic deaths of two young people, Tony

Merrill, the young boy lost to cancer, and Matt Colby, the Costa Mesa

football player who died after injuries sustained on the field.

I asked them to share some memories with us.

“I have a lot of great memories. Some memorable stories: Ecuador

is obviously topmost on that list,” said Deepa, who’s from Madras,

India.

“It was the trip of my life and story of my career, so far. My

exclusive interview with Dennis Rodman, when he announced he was

going to run for City Council, and the slew of high-profile trials

were also memorable: Abrams, Bechler and Haidl.

I also enjoyed writing Living Memories for the most part.

“Some of them, such as the one about Aria, the 11-year-old with cancer, moved me to tears even as I was writing it.

“I’ve relished feedback of all kinds I’ve got from readers, good

and bad. But the most important piece of feedback, I think, came a

couple of weeks ago when a reader told me that he enjoys my work and

that if he saw my byline, he would go back and read the story.

“That’s when it hit me that people in the community do care about

the work we do here and that we need to make every story, however

trivial it may seem at the moment, the best we can possibly make it

so it’s worth our readers’ time.”

Deirdre also has a lot of good memories:

“I enjoyed covering Costa Mesa for two years and having

entertaining conversations with Gary Monahan, Allan Roeder and Mike

Scheafer, just to name a few,” said Deirdre, an Ivy League Cornell

grad and San Francisco native who loves the 49ers.

“I am glad I got to cover Newport Beach for at least a few months

to see who got elected, what happened to Marinapark and what the

Planning Commission thought of St. Andrew’s. I have enjoyed working

with all my sources.

“On a lighter note, I will never forget sitting through Costa Mesa

City Council meetings till the wee hours of the morning -- still

catching up on my sleep because of that.

“I still remember Newport Coast Principal Monique Van Zeebroeck

kissing a dog to keep a promise she made to students and the joy of

skate park enthusiasts at the skate park groundbreaking in Costa

Mesa. The newsroom -- or city room according to assistant city editor

Ryan Carter -- was a great place to work -- a melange of hard work,

stimulating conversation and raucous laughter. I will miss everyone

in the newsroom.”

We’ll miss both of you also, but we wish you nothing but good

luck.