USA Today's Chapter Eternal continues to grow

Harry Blauvelt, who I knew in USA Today's sports department back in the day, was killed in a freakish accident on Maryland's Bay Bridge on Monday.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/2011/04/men_killed_injured_in_bay_brid.html

I was stunned to see that he was 70.

The Chapter Eternal of USAT Sports gains a new member, joining ... and I'm sure to leave somebody out ... Don Collins, Anne Squires and John Bannon, to name three.

RIP.

 

Wow. What the hell was going on that day on the bridge? I've driven that bridge and it doesn't seem like it's a bad bridge to me (aside from the fact it's high above the water).

RIP Harry and sorry for your loss, HH. I know he wasn't family but he probably felt like it to you.

 

I've been gone from USAT so long now (1991) that it seems like somebody else's life. But the losses still can sting in surprising ways.

 

I remember meeting Harry more than 20 years ago and marveling that he was 49 or 50 at the time -- until I met his parents. They looked way too young to have a 50-year-old son. Good genes and clean living, I suppose.

This board talks a lot about great characters in our business and Harry belongs right up there. RIP, buddy.

 

I met Harry when I just started. He was sports editor at the Merced, Calif., Sun-Star and I was at a sister weekly, but was cheap help on Friday night covering football. By the end of the school year, he got a job at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, which led to the USAT gig. Still stunning.

 

Wow. I was on loan when all four were there. I knew about Don Collins, but not Bannon, or Anne. How long have they been gone?

 

Yeah, when did John Bannon die?

 

Here's a few more details on the crash. Talked to someone at his old paper in Calif., but I was such a rookie I didn't have any memories to share.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-bay-bridge-victim-20110419,0,494441.story

 

Anne Squires died in the summer of 2004.
John Bannon died in 2005 in Florida at age 53.