On the Endangered Species List, Part 6, Conclusion of Jim Nicholson's presentation to he Society of Professional Obituary Writers, April 24, 2010

Watch all 6 segments of Jim Nicholson's speech/Q&A from the Society of Professional Obituary Writers Convention on April 24, 2010, which are posted on Obituary Forum. This is #6.



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"Great Love Stories That Would Not Die" -- Part 5 of Jim Nicholson's presentation at 2010 Society of Professional Obituary Writers Convention

Thanks to my son, Zack Baranick, for converting the DVD of Jim's speech into a form that could be divided into segments and uploaded to YouTube as a courtesy for his mom.



One more segment to go. Watch for it Saturday, June 5, 2010.

'Did My Being Here Make a Difference?' Jim Nicholson asks Society of Professional Obituary Writers - Part 4 of 6

Part of the Grieving Chain: Jim Nicholson's Society of Professional Obituary Writers speech, Part 3

Jim Nicholson, retired award-winning Daily News obituary writer, said obit writers are part of the grieving chain in his speech at the Society of Professional Obituary Writers Convention at The Philadelphia Inquirer on April 24, 2010.

Jim Nicholson's speech to Society of Professional Obituary Writers, April 24, 2010 - Part 2 - The Desert

Here's Part 2 of Jim Nicholson's speech, which was graciously recorded by Jim's brother at the SPOW Convention at The Philadelphia Inquirer on April 24, 2010.

Jim Nicholson's speech to Society of Professional Obituary Writers, April 24, 2010 - Part 1, "Preaching to the preachers"

Cancer diagnosis, grammar and Dennis Hopper

In his obituary for Dennis Hopper in The Washington Post on May 29, 2010, Adam Bernstein wrote: Mr. Hopper, who enjoyed a career resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s playing alcoholics and compelling psychopaths in films including "Hoosiers," "Blue Velvet" and "Speed," had prostate cancer diagnosed last year.

As usual, Adam chose his words carefully and condensed lots of information into one sentence that is easy to read and grammatically correct.

The cancer part reminded me of copy editors at the Cleveland Plain Dealer informing me, "People are not diagnosed with cancer. The cancer is diagnosed."

That pronouncement and recommended ways to express that a medical professional has determined that a person has cancer or some other life-threatening condition have resulted in my rarely using any form of the word "diagnose" in obits. I'm so certain I'll mess it up.

I would appreciate knowing how other obit writers handle diagnoses.

JOB: Reporter wanted

>>From Freelance Job Openings

Experienced reporter needed to interview people who are at the end of lives about their experiences and insights. We pay per interview; if our edited version of your interview is used in our book, you will receive a byline for the chapter as well. Must have strong interviewing background and the ability to record interviews and submit mp3 or equivalent file for editing. You will work with doctors, nursing homes, hospices and your own network to identify subjects, set appointments, conduct interviews and send us the audio file. We will provide sample interviews and training, but the key to success will be your own compassion and talent as a reporter. Flexible hours based on availability of you and your subjects.

Every day, people receive terminal diagnoses; and every day, people die and their stories are lost forever. You will help those stories live on, creating a legacy for those whose knowledge and insights will otherwise disappear.

FMI: click here

Radio voices of baseball, part 2

Spencer Michlin, who suggested we share the James Moore piece about the late Philadelphia Phillies radio voice Ernie Harwell in the previous blog posting, shares his own thoughts as follows:

My thoughts on why he was important are identical to the reasons I think baseball and radio--and, especially, baseball on radio--are important.

Football and basketball might as well have been created for television right down to the shapes of the playing surfaces.

Basketball moves so fast that it’s difficult to describe fully as its happening. Radio announcers barely have time to do more than follow the ball, and in their breathless efforts to do that, have no chance to discuss the strategy of each fluid move and, certainly, no ability to discuss the beauty of the moves themselves.

Football works a little better on radio, but, even though the stop and start nature of the game allows the announcers to discuss strategy, it’s just so much more exciting to see the plays as they unfold.

But for me, if you can’t be at the ballpark, it’s better to listen to baseball on the radio. The game is so much bigger on the screen of your imagination than in HD, and it’s the announcers who make it so.

To this day, you can walk down a street in the Bronx and follow a Yankees game from radios on stoops and near windows without missing a play. Kids across the country still stay up past bedtime surreptitiously listening to their favorite team and keeping a box score by flashlight. A solitary car trip at night is made better by the calm and excited voices of men riding the ionosphere skip from a thousand miles away, describing the action on a diamond you’ll never see in life, a battle between two teams you don’t even care about--except on that one night.

Much has been overblown about baseball’s role as a part of our national fabric, but I say that—even beyond the game itself--baseball on the radio has, for generations, brought together the city and the farm, the forest and the harbor. Each game is its own story and voices like Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, Red Barber, Mel Allen, and Harry Caray have been among America’s finest storytellers.

And let’s throw in Jack Graney of the Indians (this is more than being polite—when I was a kid in the early 50’s, my Dallas Eagles were a farm team of the Indians, and for many summers I’d listen to Graney describe the exploits of Avila, Boudreau, Doby, Feller and Easter.) Across America, this experience, varied only by the heroes involved, is part of who a great many of us are.

As for Harwell himself, James Moore describes his voice and impact better than I ever could:

“He was resonant and reassuring without being intrusive. Listeners heard confidence and kindliness as a subtext to his descriptions of baseball games. We thought we knew Mr. Harwell but he definitely knew us. Harwell understood that there was an almost sacred connection between fans and their teams and he always gave us reason to believe in happy outcomes…

“Mostly though, the Tiger’s legendary broadcaster sounded like summer.”

-- Spencer

James Moore writes about the late Ernie Harwell, silenced voice of the Detroit Tigers

Spencer Michlin, writer of obits, screenplays and commercials, suggested we share the James Moore piece about the late Ernie Harwell, whose voice became the harbinger of spring for Detroit baseball fans.

It was published on the Huffington Post today, May 5, 2010.

Moore writes of Harwell: He spoke the story of America in the metaphor of baseball. Learn to lose with grace and win with humility and never stop trying.

A beautifully crafted tribute, definitely worth reading.

2010 People's Picks

By now, Obituary Forum's faithful followers and the Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW) members know that the results of the People's Picks online poll have no bearing in selecting winners of the official SPOW Awards.

We feel it's important to distinguish between the two honors. That's why we did not post the People's Picks results with the official SPOW Award winners. It's not like we forgot or anything. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

Winners of the People's Picks poll are as follows:

Best body of work (long-form) by one writer, based on exactly five obits, published in 2009 in a print or online news publication. (Long-form obits have 800 words or more.): Laurence Arnold, Bloomberg News.

Best body of work (short-form) by one writer, based on exactly five obits, published in 2009 in a print or online news publication: Maureen O'Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times.

Best long-form obituary about a well-known regional figure: Ron Csillag, Globe and Mail, "Clarence Peterson."

Best short-form obituary about a well-known regional figure: Evin Demirel, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "Albert Zoppe."

Best long-form obituary about an Average Joe: Ron Hayes, The Coastal Star, "Bill Dunn."

Best short-form obituary about an Average Joe: Maureen O'Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times, "Danny Stanton."

Best obituary that goes beyond summing up a life: Maureen O'Donnell, Chicago Sun-Times, "Danny Stanton."

Best tribute, column, memoir or retrospective in print or online: Josh Farley, Kitsap Sun, "Robert and Darlene Moser."

Outstanding radio obituary: Natasha Gruneberg of BBC Radio for her obituary for Walter Cronkite.

Complete list of SPOW winners is posted on the awards page of the SPOW website.

Tributes to Jim Nicholson and Kay Powell

Tribute to Kay Powell
by Marilyn Johnson

Please do not tell her what to do, or presume to speak for her.

I'm serious. Do not impugn her sex, her country, her region, or her profession, which, by the way, is journalist, not obit writer.

She's the most fun person you could ever hope to hang with at a conference in a far flung city, but do not cross her and do not ignore her, and please go back and read her obituaries, which ran for more than a dozen years, creating a community that bridged the sexes, races, and regions and that included both the living and the dead. Steel and fire, humor and heart, and a sly subversive streak. Yes indeed.

When Eliza Bazemore died at either 114 or 115, our honored writer wrote several grafs on the reason her age was disputed and discussed other supercentenarians (as well as a destroyed bible)…but after saluting Ms. Bazemore in fitting fashion, the obit ends with the real reason her age was a mystery: Mrs. Bazemore wouldn't discuss the matter, and always said, "A woman who would tell her age would tell everything."

Our honored writer sent off a teacher of preachers-- a double down holy man, right?-- and without blinking, quoted his associate: "Mance was a hell of a teacher."

And this from the obit of Charlotte Walker, a late-blooming actress. Mrs. Walker's favorite role was that of a woman sitting on a porch in "Murder in Mississippi." "She is asked by the Blair Underwood character if she and her husband would go vote. 'We'll be free when we die,' was her line. In real life, she never missed a chance to vote and had participated in the civil rights movement. In September 2004, she shared her experiences with the massive oral history project, 'Voices of Civil Rights.'"

And here is the part that signifies our honoree, Kay Powell's, special genius. These accomplishments were wonderful, but you don't get an x-ray of our subject's heart until you get this detail: Mrs. Walker was instrumental in having the church's gospel choir on the same film's sound track. Mrs. Walker was fine and she was accomplished, and she took her people with her.

Kay Powell got what people did, but she really got what the women did -- how 99 year old Frances Rossman fought for 10 years to get her neighbor's junk vehicles removed, or how the docent talked her husband into colonial costume, complete with pantihose, and turned him into a candle dipper. Our writer recorded things that wouldn't have been recorded by anyone else, certainly not by her brother journalists, and she filled the pages of a major newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with people we still don't see enough of in newspapers-- more than anyone, Kay Powell has been responsible for fighting the historic sexual imbalance on the obit page. Kay has also helped create and nourish a community of obit writers and obituary lovers that is generous enough to embrace all comers, including my mother, who is a great fan of her martini earrings-- and Kay's community transcends all differences. She has helped give obituary writing a legitimate and respected place in journalism, and she has made us all proud….she is fine and she's accomplished and she takes her people -- that's us -- with her.

And for this, we honor and love her.



Tribute to Jim Nicholson
by Marilyn Johnson

Thomas "Mooseneck" Robinson.

Richard "Groove" Holmes.

Francis P. "Shaky" Kane, Truck Driver.

And Sister Clem, "who didn't fit the regular nun bill" and "could dispatch a hoagie with ease."

I can re-read their stories a hundred times and never tire of them, these characters who moved out of Philly (and their earthly existence) in the Eighties and Nineties-- my dear dead friends, introduced, summed up, and made unforgettable by Jim Nicholson. He cherished their quirks and measured their immeasurable contributions and laced their portraits with both plain talk and Biblical cadence. (He could also wiggle out of some pretty tight corners.) But most of all he saw. He saw his subjects in all their beautiful and bulbous glory. They had been invisible for so long in the pages of the big city papers, except as victims or perps. Certainly no one outside their neighborhood had ever celebrated them for being "the woman holding up the scenery" or the man with "the patience of a clam." He saw them for who they were. "'I'm not going to tell you a lie. Moose was a drinker.'"

Jim Nicholson gave us a portrait of the blue-collar city, the immigrant city, the black and white city, the individual troops who kept the city working. He buried newsmen with grace and a shrewd eye, like William J. Storm, "Perhaps the greatest 'house-end' reporter who ever worked in Philadelphia." Nicholson explained why knocking on doors after a tragedy to get quotes or material was an important job and a lost art and why Storm was its best practitioner-- he respected his subjects; he was compassionate.

When it came time for Jim to send off a fellow obit writer, he'd make sure there was some news in there to make it truly memorable. Remembering his friend Burr Van Atta, Jr., the obit writer for the rival Inquirer, Jim confessed that he and Burr used to shuffle their pages to make sure every family in Philly who wanted an obit got one. Shocking? Yes, but that compassionate detail guaranteed we'd remember the man.

The same can be said for Nicholson. Nancy Hass, the first of many people who insisted I talk to Jim, used to sit behind him at the Daily News where, for 19 years, he interviewed survivors in an effort to bring their loved ones to life in a portrait.

According to Nancy, "I would hear him speak to families, the regular folk he specialized in writing about, always using that courtly southern-fried voice. Didn't matter who they were, how poor, how weird. One day he was speaking to a woman whose uncle had died. They lived in a particularly lowbrow part of north Philly. All I could hear was his side of the conversation, but that was all I needed.

"'So everyone called him Mooseneck? Hmmm, that's sure an interesting nickname.

"'Okay ma'am, so what exactly did Mooseneck do, I mean, for a living?

"'Oh, so he just laid on the couch all day?'"

"Long pause. Nicholson's head started to bob, and he chuckled long and low. I wondered what he would say to her, what was there to say?

"'Well, you know I had an uncle like that, ma'am.'"

What made him laugh? How did she drink her coffee? How did he keep the shoes in his closet? These were ways to get at the heavier issues about life and death: What did he care about? Who did she love? And how did they find their time on earth? But they were also little brushes he used to add color and shade his portraits. It shouldn't surprise you that he is an elegant painter, a wonderful caretaker, and a loyal and dear friend. Knowing how he works, his laser attention, wholehearted commitment to the subject at hand, that courtly southern fried style-- you don't think he was going to let me get away with just a few stories, do you? No, he hounded me until I got it. I believe it in some quarters, is known as soul.

Jim, in those 19 years, you changed the faces that appeared on the obits page, and you changed our idea of what constitutes the well-lived life. You made your city and your country and the news business proud. And look at all these professionals cheering you, who know just what that took.

Awards for obituary writing presented at SPOW Convention in Philadelphia

Marilyn Johnson, author of “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and The Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries,” made a surprise appearance at the 2010 Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW) Convention Friday, April 23, 2010, to praise keynote speaker Jim Nicholson, retired Daily News obit writer, and announce that Kay Powell, former Atlanta Journal-Constitution obits editor, is the recipient of the SPOW Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010.

Jim, who was the first recipient of the honor, presented the award to Kay, who was uncharacteristically speechless.

Receiving top honors in the Body of Work category are Andrew Meacham of the St. Petersburg Times for long-form obits (over 800 words) and Evin Demirel, former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obit writer, for short-form obits (under 800 words). Both men were present to accept their awards.

Andrew also won the award for the Best obituary that goes beyond summing up a life for his nontraditional obit for “Hope Witsell,” a 13-year-old girl who took her own life.

Tom Hawthorn won the SPOW Award for Best long-form obit about a well-known figure with his obit for "Frank Williams", which was published in the Globe and Mail of Canada.

Maureen O'Donnell of the Chicago Sun-Times won the SPOW Award for Best short-form obit about a well-known figure, “L. Scott Deatherage".

Winner of the Best long-form obit about an Average Joe is Ron Hayes, a freelance writer who penned the obit for “Bill Dunn” for The Coastal Star, Ocean Ridge, Fla.

The SPOW Award for short-form obit about an Average Joe went to Sally Downey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Sally says there was nothing average about her subject, "Hayward Ford," a master gardener.

Joan Harvey won the SPOW Award for Best tribute, column, memoir or retrospective for her Oregonian Op-Ed piece on teacher "George Katagiri.”

Natasha Gruneberg won the award for Outstanding Radio Obituary for the obit she put together on “Sir Clement Freud” for BBC Radio.

People's Picks Poll and SPOW Awards

Judging for the 2010 Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW) Awards has been completed. Official SPOW Award winners have been selected. And the People's Picks poll is open for business.

The work of the top five finalists from each juried category has been posted for the "People's Picks" poll at http://www.obitwriters.org/contest.html. The public is invited to read the unidentified finalists' work and vote for their favorites.

However, the online poll will have no effect on the selection of official SPOW Award winners. The People's Picks poll is just for fun.

Official SPOW Awards will be presented and the results of the online poll will be announced during an awards luncheon on Friday, April 23, 2010, at the Philadelphia Inquirer during the SPOW Convention.

For convention registration, go to http://obitwriters2010.eventbrite.com/.

Early Bird Registration for SPOW Convention

Early Bird registration for the Society of Professional Obituary Writers Convention, which will take place April 22-24, 2010, in Philadelphia, ends Wednesday, March 31, 2010.

The discount on the already inexpensive registration fees may end then, but registration will continue after that. Same-day registration will also be available.

To register and/or to pay SPOW membership dues, go to
http://obitwriters2010.eventbrite.com/.

Tom Hobbs made The Guardian of London

Nigel Starck's obit for Tom Hobbs was published in The Guardian on March 23, 2010.

Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/mar/23/tom-hobbs-obituary

Obit Writers Convention mentioned by E&P

Thanks to Editor & Publisher posting an item about the Society of Professional Obituary Writers Convention that will take place in Philadelphia next month.

Here's the E&P link:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004077473

And here's the link for convention registration:
http://obitwriters2010.eventbrite.com

Franchise fiasco

The New York Times published the following correction to a recent obituary. It reads like a multitude of errors was committed, but there were only two: the stolen bases occurred during a game not an inning, and the original obit described records for the Dodgers franchise, when in fact they were only for the Dodgers since they abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

Correction: March 12, 2010

An obituary on Wednesday about Willie Davis, who succeeded Duke Snider as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ center fielder, erroneously credited Davis with franchise records in several categories. His career totals in those categories were records for the Los Angeles Dodgers only, not for the Dodger franchise, which was originally located in Brooklyn. Zack Wheat, not Davis, holds the franchise records for hits, at-bats, triples and total bases; Pee Wee Reese holds the record for runs; Duke Snider holds the record for extra-base hits. The obituary also incorrectly described one of Davis’s World Series accomplishments. He stole three bases in one game in the 1965 Series, not three bases in one inning.

Thomas C. Hobbs: 1949-2010

The joy Tom Hobbs found in research was never more evident than in the historic dimensions he compiled, presented, wrote scholarly papers on and discussed on panels before an international audience of obituary writers.

As a reference librarian at the University of South Carolina Aiken, he made outstanding contributions to his academic and civic communities, all detailed in his curriculum vitae: http://library.usca.edu/uploads/KDDK/HobbsThomasCV.pdf.

“The man was smart, accurate and terrifically helpful, a librarian to the core,” said Marilyn Johnson, author of “This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All” and “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries.” “When I told him I was writing about obituaries, he made sure that I knew about The Gentleman's Magazine and offered to help any way he could.”

Nigel Starck, a University of South Australia educator, remembers the help Tom gave him while he was conducting research in the United States for his book, “Life After Death.”

“I do have some notably warm feelings about Tommy – especially as he went to the Aiken bus stop at 12:30 a.m. to meet me off the Greyhound in 2002,” Starck said. (See more from Starck in the comments that follow this obituary.)

Thomas Cooper Hobbs, 61, died in his sleep of a heart attack at 11 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010, according to the Aiken County (S.C.) coroner. His body was discovered the next day by concerned friends from the university, who went to his home in North Augusta, S.C., to check on him after he hadn’t shown up for work.

Tom’s funeral will be held Saturday, March 6, 2010, beginning with visitation at 11 a.m. and followed by services at noon, at the Lane Funeral Home (Coulter Chapel), 601 Ashland Terrace, Chattanooga, Tenn.

A memorial service will be incorporated into the Palmetto Friends Gathering, which begins at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Lexington YMCA, 401 YMCA Road, Lexington, S.C.

Burial will take place at noon Monday, March 9, 2010, when Tom’s body will be laid to rest next to his father, Noble Hobbs, at the Davidson Memorial Gardens, U.S. 23, Ivel, Ky.

Tom, the only child of Noble and Kathryn Hobbs, was born Jan. 6, 1949, in Chattanooga. Kathryn had worked at the American Lava plant in Chattanooga. Noble, who represented coal mining firms, worked in Kentucky.

Kathryn was around 39 years old, when Tom was born. Giving birth at that age carried many dangers for mother and child in those days.

“Because of her age, she wanted a doctor and a hospital she knew,” said Tom’s cousin Mary Anne McGrew. So Kathryn left Kentucky and returned to her hometown of Chattanooga for Tom’s birth. “She felt more comfortable here.”

Baby Tom and his mother soon joined his father in Pikeville, Ky.

Tom graduated from Pikeville High School in 1967. His father died the following year at age 65.

Tom’s mother, age 100, now lives at a Chattanooga retirement community. Tom, who never married, also is survived by five cousins.


Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1971 and a master’s degree in library science in 1972 from the University of Kentucky. He continued his education throughout his life, taking college courses, attending seminars and brainstorming with scholars and other professionals to master computer, research and organizational skills.

His career began at Louisiana State University at Eunice. Tom worked at Prestonburg (Ky.) Community College and Cleveland (Tenn.) State Community College before joining the staff at USCA in 1986.

USCA officials will likely make and announce a decision on how to recognize Tom’s life and contributions to the university after Spring Break.

Tom’s interest in obituaries as a research tool led him to attend many obit-centered gatherings. Last year, he became an associate member of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW).

He endeared himself to obituary writers, educators, researchers and aficionados who attended the first SPOW Convention in 2009 and nine Great Obituary Writers Conferences before that. The latter confabs were hosted by Carolyn Gilbert, founder of what became known as the International Association of Obituarists (IAO).

“I think Tom created that word ‘obituarists’ or came across it in his research,” said award-winning obituary writer Kay Powell, who met Tom at an obits conference.

“I was in line for supper,” Powell recalled. “A man behind me started talking to me about the obit for a bowlegged ballet teacher that I had written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“I turned to him in amazement, and Tom introduced himself. Years earlier, he had been looking for feature style obits to archive at USC Aiken and discovered the pieces I wrote for the AJC. He quoted entire paragraphs from obits I didn’t even remember writing.

“Nearly 15 years ago, Tom gave me a sobriquet which people quote to this day. When ATLANTA magazine profiled me and the new feature style obits of the AJC, the writer interviewed Tom, who dubbed me ‘doyenne of the death beat.’”

The quiet librarian made his humorous remarks without flourish, as if he were talking about the weather. His matter-of-fact delivery made his comments all the more hilarious.

Larken Bradley, who writes obituaries for the West Marin Citizen in Point Reyes Station, Calif., reports, “My favorite Tom moment was in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel (in Las Vegas, N.M.) when I sat down on the couch next to the big stuffed gorilla. Tom sat in a chair across from me, and I gestured to the gorilla and said, ‘Have you met my sister Bernice?’

“After a beat Tom said, ‘If she's single, maybe I'll ask her out.’”

Carolyn Gilbert, IAO conference host, said, “The last time I saw Tommy was at the 10th Great Obituary Writers' Conference. As always, he was so pleased to see old friends and to make the acquaintance of new obituarists who attended.

"I remember presenting him with an enlargement of a photograph made at his first conference back in Jefferson, Texas, in 2000. It was an image of a smiling Tom with the Grim Reaper -- a surprise guest at the end of the conference.”

His many fans -- among obit writers and people who just love to read and collect obits -- were drawn to him not only for his scholarly research but for his kind and thoughtful nature. In an effort not to offend anyone, Tom, who was a Quaker, seemed to carefully consider his words when controversial topics entered the conversation.

He once said, “I get lots of practice in giving the appearance of impartiality as part of my work in the library. It’s my job to guide people to the information they seek, regardless of my opinion of the purpose they have in mind for it. The students and faculty would not trust me, if I were known as an opinionated crank. I don’t even do bumper stickers and lapel buttons during election season for that reason.”

Tom published “A Librarian Looks at the Obituaries” in Grassroots Editor in 2001 and presented a peer review paper on “The Obituary: A Dying Art Turned Lively Again” to library associations.

“He wanted to know everything about historical and cutting-edge obits,” said Alana Baranick, SPOW director. “In the last couple of years, he dug into the development of obits in newspapers that serve the African-American community.”

While Tom could cite examples from literature about innovative ways to use obituaries in a teaching environment, he also became a student of online multimedia presentations of obits.

Incorporating text, photos, Internet links, video and audio into obits went hand-in-hand with what Tom called “a notion that has been jelling inside my little brain that obits now have enhanced value as an educational tool, not only as an information resource.”

The result: He co-founded the Obituaries in Education Interest Group.”

At IAO conferences, Tom presented his research on “Obituaries as a Mirror on Society: What the Research Shows” and on “Sylvanus Urban, Obituarist Extraordinaire: The Gentleman’s Magazine and the Life and Times of John Nichols.”

“I was stunned to hear that he had come near death the last time people gathered in Las Vegas, N.M., (for the last IAO conference in 2008) that a group had gone with him in the ambulance and kept watch over him through the night,” Johnson said.

“It feels right that people are gathering again, from all corners of the world, to pay tribute to a gentle man and a gentleman who brought a scholarly presence to that lark of the conference.”

Tom had been planning to attend the SPOW Convention in Philadelphia at the end of April 2010.

His cousin added, “He loved his part in that and loved to get with you all.”

This obituary was prepared by Tom Hobbs’ friends with help from his family. Please click “Comments” below, if you have Tom Hobbs stories or comments to share.

Tom Hobbs, USC at Aiken librarian and founder of Obituaries in Education Group, gone at age 61

We are terribly sorry to report that Tom Hobbs, reference librarian and assistant professor at the University of South Carolina at Aiken and founder of Obituaries in Education Group on Facebook, died Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010, at his home in North Augusta, S.C.

Above is the photo Tom chose for his Facebook profile. We suggest that his FB friends post condolences on his FB wall, which will likely remain online for long time.

Below, Tom is pictured with Cailin Brown, SPOW contest coordinator, during a Great Obituary Conference in Alfred, N.Y., in 2007.

Tom endeared himself to obituary writers, educators, researchers and aficionados who attended the Society of Professional Obituary Writers (SPOW) Convention in 2009 and many Great Obituary Writers Conferences before that.

Tom had been planning to attend the SPOW Convention in Philadelphia at the end of April 2010. We will miss seeing him again, listening to his views on obits and enjoying the pleasure of his company.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Lane Funeral Home of Chattanooga, Tenn., and should be posted on Lane's website at http://www.lanefh.com/obituaries.

An obituary will be posted on Obituary Forum in the next few days. We welcome comments and anecdotes.