Stephen C. Guilfoyle, Sr., 82

Stephen Christopher Patrick Guilfoyle, 82, passed away June 29, 2013, at his home, surrounded by family.

Born Dec. 5, 1930, in New York, N.Y., Mr. Guilfoyle worked as a creditmanager in the textile industry for Springs Mills in New York City, then with Reeves Brothers in Spartanburg.

He was a veteran, first serving in the 165th Division of the U.S. Army National Guard, “The Fighting 69th," the Irish Division. He then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, serving in the American occupation force in Germany, reaching the rank of buck sergeant.

He and the love of his life, Mary Enright Guilfoyle of the home, celebrated 50 years of marriage on June 1, 2013.  They have four children whom they never stopped loving and teaching.

As a youth, he went for what was to be a brief stay with his grandmother inLimerick, Ireland.  With the outbreak of World War II, he was forced to remain in Ireland for the duration of the war.  When he finally was able to return, his Irish friends were still calling him “Yank” because of his American accent.  But when he returned to New York, his friends noted his Irish accent.

He had a remarkable tenor voice that he kept mostly to himself, but he joined it with others as a member of the choir of St. Raymond Catholic Church and the Bronx Chorale Society. With both, he performed Handel's "Messiah" at St. Raymond 's and "Carmina Burana" at Alice Tully Music Hall in New York's Lincoln Center.

When Mr. Guilfoyle moved his family to Spartanburg in 1980 he was able to escape, for a time, the childhood nickname of “Buddy” his brother had bestowed on him in his crib.  But it gradually returned as “Bud.”

He was a Boy Scout in Ireland.  As an adult in the Bronx, he became a volunteer leader of Cub Scout Pack 56 at St. Raymond’s when his sons joined.  When his sons advanced to the Boy Scout troop, he remained with the Cubsas its Pack Leader.  For assisting in leading Scouts to develop their Catholic faith, he earned two awards given to adult Scout leaders – the Bronze Pelican and the St. George’s Cross.

In Spartanburg, he and his wife Mary became early members of Our Risen Savior Parish, where he served for a time on the parish finance committee.

He was a fan of the Dodgers, and his favorite player was Jackie Robinson.  But when the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles, he never followed a professional sports team again.  He became a fan of the University of South Carolina.

He was predeceased by his parents, John P. Guilfoyle and Mary “Mae” Hayes Guilfoyle, as well as his older brother, John P. Guilfoyle, Jr.

In addition to his wife, Mary Enright Guilfoyle, he is survived by his sister, Eileen Guilfoyle Skeahan and husband, John Skeahan of Texas; his daughter, Anne Guilfoyle Pyle and husband Glenn of Villa Rica, GA; daughter, Catherine Mary Guilfoyle of Spartanburg; son, Stephen C. Guilfoyle, Jr. and his wife Patricia of Fort Mill; grandson, Stephen C. Guilfoyle III of Fort Mill; son, John Michael Guilfoyle and wife Deborah Gardner Guilfoyle of Spartanburg; and many beloved nieces and nephews, cousins and friends.

They will all remember Mr. Guilfoyle as a kind, gentle, funny man.  He gave out smiles and laughs, belittled no one and taught others by his quiet example.

A Rosary will be recited at 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 1, 2013 at Floyd’s Greenlawn Chapel, 2075 E. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29307.  Visitation will follow until 8:30 PM.  A Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 2, 2013 at the Catholic Church of Jesus Our Risen Savior, conducted by the Rev. Frank Palmieri, CRM.  Burial will be in Westwood Memorial Gardens, 6101 Reidville Road, Moore, SC 29369.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to The Catholic Church of Jesus our Risen Savior Building Fund, 2575 Reidville Road, Spartanburg, SC 29301 or Spartanburg Regional Hospice Home, 686 Jeff Davis Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29303.

The family is at the home.

An online guest register is available at www.floydmortuary.com

Floyd’s Greenlawn Chapel

There have been some nice comments on the obit on the funeral home's website, here, and on the Hearald Journal/Legacy.com, here. But the Legacy.com one won't be up forever.

Everything I needed to know about journalism, I learned from'Superman the Movie'

(This is a blast from the past.)

When I was 13, I heard a promise, repeated and repeated and repeated.

“You will believe a man can fly.”

Superman: The Movie, I know now, was being hyped and marketed and it had a catchphrase that stuck.

Unlike a lot of marketing moves, this one was 100 percent successful. When the movie came out, I saw it, and I believed a man could fly.

Flash forward a bit. It is 2003 or ‘04. Having just completed a round of tailgating with friends before a football, I get my sideline photo pass, grab up my cameras and head to Williams-Brice Stadium to cover a USC football game. As a graduate, but a journalist as well, I had to tread the line and not show any partiality. I had so many USC hats, I had to leave them all behind.

I grabbed a blue hat given me for Christmas or my birthday one year, from thorn-in-my-side oldest sister Anne.

I thought nothing about the hat that day, just that it was not a USC hat, so I’d be safely innocuous. If there was a too-loud cheer in the press box for a good play, suspicion would immediately fall on me if I wore the garnet and black of my beloved Gamecocks.

So it was, I thought, going to make me safe.

But it stood out in another way. It must have struck a chord with one of the Richland County deputies guarding the gates.

“Are you Superman?” he asked. I blinked, having forgotten what hat I was wearing. It was a blue hat, but with the stylized red and yellow 'S" shield of Superman.

“No,” I said. “But I am Clark Kent."

The beginning bit about the movie does lead to the latter bit about the football game. I write for a lot of reasons, but most were set well in stone when my main career goals were to be a Jedi Knight or at least a pilot.
Another movie put me on the road to being a writer.

But when the decision was made to be a writer, it was Superman: The Movie that set in stone for me what kind of writer I was going to be.

Everything I needed to know about journalism, I learned by watching Superman.

You quiz most journalists my age, and they’ll say All The President’s Men is their favorite journalism movie. More artsy types will throw Citizen Kane out there.

There was a movie way back in which Humphrey Bogart plays a reporter or an editor. Can’t remember. Just caught the tail end of it.

“This ain’t the oldest profession in the world, kid,” he tells a flunky. “But it’s the best.”

Still holds true today.

Superman: The Movie is about criminal masterminds and earthquakes and a certain son of Krypton. But you could pull out all the special effects and still have a GREAT newspaper movie. And any reporter around 40 years old who doesn't list Superman: The Movie as an influence is lying.

The fastest typist I’ve ever seen

When I “matriculated” to the University of South Carolina’s College of Journalism, the dean doing my advising was clear. I either had to pass a typing test registering me at 35 words per
minute, or I’d have to take a typing course.

Because something so mundane as a typing course was actually listed on our degree requirements, some dismissed journalism as a trade, a craft, not worthy of being taught like professions at colleges or universities.

Jerks.

It was a practical thing we needed. We had to make the choice.

In Superman, Editor-in-Chief Perry White hires Clark Kent on the spot, replacing Lois Lane on the “city beat” for a variety of reasons.

“Not only does he know how to treat his editor-in-chief with the proper respect, not only does he have a snappy, punchy pro-style, but he is in my 40 years in this business, the fastest typist I’ve ever seen.”

I tried the typing test, and with mistakes, couldn’t hit that minimal mark. So I took a course that included some shorthand lessons for taking notes. I remember about three of the shorthand notes, and have made my own shortcuts to be able to keep up.

But when computers began to come along, typing programs were, early on, one of the things they started out with.

I plugged along at about 40 words per minute when I was transcribing something. Probably a little faster, but they gig you a point here and there for misspellings and typos.

But I tried my hand at a Mac typing program, on a goof. It had a nice, different test.

It had an open field and said, “Type whatever you want.”

Victory – 135 words per minute doing the kind of typing that I would really be doing. Not secretarial transcribing, but writing. I clocked a little bit faster about five years later when I bought my first computer, and it came with Mario Teaches Typing.

Speling, spealing, schpelling

“What are you writing, Miss Lane?” Jimmy Olsen asks The Daily Planet’s star reporter.

“An Ode to Spring' – how do you spell massacre?”

Later in the same exchange – “There’s only one ‘p’ in rapist,” Olsen says.

A later dig at a similar piece she’s handing in comes from Perry White.

“There’s no ‘z’ in brasierre,” he says, looking at it for like two seconds and throwing it back at her.

What a fascinating Ode to Spring that piece must have been.

Just the facts, ma’am

Journalism has changed over the years. It once existed to tell people what was happening. But now newspapers, the bigger they are, have abandoned that as a principle and are more interested in talking about trends. Some try to make people FEEL things, some try to make people think a certain way about what is being covered.

I’ve never liked that approach, and I don’t do it in my paper.

Because of Perry White.

As he read Lois’ piece on the East side murder, she pushed at him. “This could be the basis of a whole series of articles, ‘Making Sense of Senseless Killings’ by Lois Lane,” she says.

He wasn’t buying it.

“Lois, you’re pushing a bunch of rinky dink, tabloid garbage, and The Daily Planet …”

She’s not paying him much attention, however.

To me, Perry White is saying a newspaper should be about what is happening, not why it is happening. Sometimes why stuff needs to be done, but it must follow long after what has happened.

She still tries to push the series in that same conversation.

“It’s got everything,” she says. “It’s got sex, it’s got violence, it’s got the ethnic angle.”

“So’s a lady wrestler with a foreign accent,” he says, shutting her down.

Writers may think they have the elements to make a story rise above the average, but that is generally just the reporter trying to push a piece past what it is, at its essential level.

The readers won’t always get what you’re pushing.

“It’s too good to be true,” says Lex Luther, after going over Lois’ “I spent the night with Superman” story in which too much information is revealed. “It’s too good to be true.”

“It’s too good to be true,” says his gun moll, Eve Teschmacher. “He’s 6-foot-2, has black hair, blue eyes, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and TELLS the truth.”

Brevity is something to be desired in the industry, and it’s a goal I fail at miserably. But also, sometimes, you can boil something down too far.

The article explains why Superman is Superman, and reveals a weakness. (He can’t see through lead.)

Only Luther picks up on that. Teschmacher was just looking at what was the hunky Boy Scout she was probably thinking of tempting if the opportunity presented itself.

She missed what Lois was saying with her article.

“Some people can read ‘War and Peace,’ and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story, while others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper, and unlock the secrets of the universe,” Luther tells her.

She still doesn’t get it. “Lex, what has chewing gum got to do with the secrets of the universe?”

He just rolls his eyes and tells her she’s right.

But he says, “Voila,” moments later. Somehow, by reading Lois’ piece, he’s figured out that a certain meteorite that landed in Africa was from Krypton, and it’s radiation is lethal to Superman. How? I guess I’m one of those who thinks War and Peace is just a simple adventure story.

But he was right. With the revelation about kryptonite and the lead weakness, it’s also clear that while some people will not get what you’re trying to say, others will get a WHOLE lot more out of it than you can imagine.

Get the story

During a corral of his reporters after Superman’s first appearance, Perry White shows a good insight into papers.

One day, the paper can be about one thing or a million regular things. But sooner or later, something so big is going to come along that all other considerations are put aside.

Trying to fire up his troops, Perry White says, “Whichever one of you gets it out of him, is going to end up with the single most important interview since … God talked to Moses.”

Don’t be naïve

When Superman allows Lois to interview him, he says he’s here “to fight for truth, justice and the American way.”

“You’re going to end up fighting every elected official in this country,” she says.

“I’m sure you don’t mean that, Lois,” he says. Then he tells her he never lies.

Except for that whole secret idenity thing. Sources withhold important information to protect themselves. Even the invulnerable ones have something to protect. (Clark can withstand an H-bomb, but Ma Kent? Not so much.

Even the best dump their notebook

Sometimes everything you hear shouldn’t be included in your article. I’m REAL bad about this.

But that whole, “Can’t see through lead” thing ought to give Lois pause.

She doesn’t know all the ramifications, because of the "going back in time" thing Superman did. But because she told the world that Superman can’t see through lead, Superman almost died, Lois almost died, the West Coast almost slid off into the sea, and that kid with the bad skin condition almost fell off the Golden Gate Bridge with his classmates in the school bus.

If it wasn't for Miss Teschmacher's mom living in Hackensack, who knows how many millions would have died?

We’ve got a couple of phrases for using everything. Notebook dumping is a nicer one.
Diarrhea of the typewriter is an old-style version.

Even Lois Lane does it.

The pay sucks

After her big interview/date with Superman, Lois hears the knocking at her door.

Clark shows up for the “real” date on her book.

Lois has a really nice penthouse apartment, but it’s impossible to believe that she affords it on a reporter’s salary.

Evidence Clark’s words to her as they leave.

“I was a little nervous about this, but then I decided, gosh darn it, I’ll show her the time of her life,” he says.

The good bit is fading away as the door closes behind them.

“I was figuring maybe we could go for a hamburger or whatever you like,”

The pay sucks.

There’s a whole lot more. Some bits are in Superman II.

When they find out about a nuclear bomb in Paris, Lois is sent to cover the story, not Clark.

“If Paris is going to go kablooey, I want my best reporter in the middle of it,” Perry White tells Clark.

Management appreciates your abilities, but not your life, apparently.

Also, a big story can be sitting in front of your nose and you miss it.

It takes the trip to Niagara Falls for Lois to see past the glasses at what ought to be pretty obvious.

Some reporters are willing to risk their lives for a story. Lois jumps into the Niagara River, headed to the falls. Clark does some impromptu saving without stripping down to the cape and tights.

I don’t think the potential payoff on that story is worth the risk, myself.

But the most important bit came from two characters -- the quintessential journalists in the movie. Lois and Perry both end on the same note.

"Gosh, how do you get all the great stories," Jimmy Olsen asks.

"A good reporter doesn't get great stories, Jimmy. A good reporter," she says as she walks into White's office, who's saying the same thing to Clark.

A good reporter makes them great.

I’ve gotten a nice life out of this profession, even though the pay sucks. When you get up to the editorial level, you do OK.

When you marry a beautiful publisher of the best large weekly in the state, who’s pulling down some serious bread, you find it’s much easier to have what is called “a real life." But the other rewards of the job are still the reason to do it.

There’s nothing more rewarding than a scoop, that’s for sure. Except maybe another scoop. But even if you don’t get the scoop, being allowed past police lines some of the times, looking at murder scene photos, standing next to a fire truck while a mill burns, spewing acid residue into the air, getting whipped in the face by hurricane force winds, it’s just all fun.

And come to think of it, when I cover stories like that, I can actually get hurt if something else comes along. Unlike a certain Last Son of Krypton.

But anyway, in honor of Superman starting up in a few days, I figured I’d finally get around to penning this.

I’m not Superman, but I am Clark Kent.

I’m almost 6-foot, have black hair, blue eyes, I seldom drink and never smoke, and I tell the truth.

I fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way.

With a pen.

Best weapon available.

More later, maybe.

P.S. This is 2,167 words long, and it was done in 20 minutes. That’s
108 WPM. Must be some kryptonite nearby slowing me down.

Blast from the Past: Jackie Robinson and Bud

I am a serial rehasher of things I have written before, when they seem to somehow become relavent again.
I saw the Jackie Robinson biopic "42" with Dad this weekend. And this seems, again, relavent. 
I'll have one more comment at the end. 

Dad taught me to be who I am

News Editor

Stephen Guilfoyle

When he was born –

• a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not yet president.

• the greatest epoch of the 20^th Century, World War II, was nine years in the future;

• a small man full of hatred was legally forbidden to speak in Germany, but Adolf Hitler, not yet elected to anything, was gaining influence and backing from powerful industrialists of that country;

• there was a 40-foot deep pit on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street, where, 18 months later, would rise the grandest building ever built, the Empire State Building; and

• the New York Yankees were the greatest baseball team ever, with a lineup that included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

I’m a mean kid at times and sometimes I make fun of my dad for being old.

But I look back on the world into which he was born and I realize that he has indeed somehow, behind my back, really gotten old.

I’ve never much written about my dad because it’s more fun to make fun of Mom, because her sense of humor is always taxed.

I often wonder why someone like Dad, who always jokes, ended up with Mom, who almost never does.

Dad and I go to movies. That’s what we do. We talk football now.

I am whatever kind of man one might think I am because of what I learn from him.

But I learn not from him telling me what he wants to teach, but from my watching what he

does.

I picked the historical markers, because they all have some significance to either his life or my

view of it.

Roosevelt, well, that’s my joke. “Geez, Dad, you were born before Roosevelt was President.”

And Roosevelt was president for a long time.

The Empire State Building, well, I connect that with Dad because he’s always seemed to

me a New Yorker. He’s settled down fine in South Carolina these past 20 years, but it’s just not his natural place.

If someone were to put him in an alien zoo and were to create his natural habitat, there would have to be canyons made of concrete and glass and subways.

Hitler is not included because Dad was a tyrant. Dad is a gentle man. But Dad took a little trip to Ireland when he was a youth and got stuck there for years because of World War II.

He was raised over there by his aunt.

It shaped him to be a very different sort from his brother and his sister.

I include the Yankees because, despite being born in the Bronx, the Yankees were never his team.

But it is important to note that the greatest team of all time was the Yankees of the ’30s.

When my father was born in 1930, those Yankees were a segregated team, white men only need apply.

One of the most important lessons I learned from my father, and about my father, came unspoken

but etched in deep.

My father’s favorite baseball team was dem Bums, the Brooklyn Dodgers. His favorite player

was Jackie Robinson.

My father loved Jackie Robinson’s ability to make a play out of nothing, score a run after getting

walked to first base.

It taught me all I ever needed to know about race relations and how to judge people. You judge a man by his ability, not by the color of his skin.

What a fabulous teacher he was. I gained a core belief in justice and fair play and fundamental human equality, just because Dad said, “Jackie Robinson was my favorite baseball player.”

So my Dad turned 70 Tuesday.

I wish there were someway to stop it, but I can’t. Instead, I’ll remember again all that he’s taught me. .

And I’ll feel humbled, because I’m not half the man he is, but I’ll feel lucky that I know to keep trying to measure up.

P.S. Dad liked the movie. But he doesn't like it as much as he liked "The Jackie Robinson Story." It's probably because Jackie Robinson played Jackie Robinson. (And Pee Wee Reese played Pee Wee Reese, for that matter.) Thought it was good. But it's no Jackie Robinson.
P.P.S. Dad would absolutely have loved the PBS miniseries on Jackie by Ken Burns. I know I did.

SC Press Association awards

The S.C. Press Association held its annual meeting on Friday and gave out awards.
I received three awards:
• A first place award for best single front in a small weekly, for a page done for The Lake City News & Post;
• A first place award for best front page design portfolio, for three pages done for The Hartsville Messenger; and
• A third place award for best single front page for the The Hartsville Messenger.
I didn't get to go to pick up my plaques, so I missed out on seeing some old friends.
I am particularly thrilled with the performance of my colleagues at The News & Reporter in Chester. They won at least 23 awards, most ever, and won first place in General Excellence for two- to three times weekly papers. We were doing almost that good when I was there, but never better than third in General Excellence. Travis Jenkins certainly has them rolling along.
Proud of him. Hope they are paying him better than they paid me, because he's earning it.

Funeral for a friend: Jim Davenport

The funeral in Columbia on Friday for the Associated Press’s Jim Davenport was not what I expected it to be, and probably not what most attending it expected it to be.

He was, quite simply, the best reporter in the state. During the bulk of his career, nobody talked much about that. Not until he took a leave of absence from the AP two years ago to begin his fight against cancer. He came back, worked as hard as he always did until very close to the end. But a few weeks ago, I sent him a message on his AP Twitter account and I got a message back saying it had been discontinued.

He worked on stories up until a few months ago, but then it was time to go home and wait.

Jim Davenport, if you browse the blogs and the S.C. Press Association, read the obituaries on the Associated Press and in the State newspaper, was there when a lot of the most recent history in the state of South Carolina was made.

The general public, on larger scale stories, does not recognize or care about bylines unless a story has something they want to challenge or dismiss. They want to find out who wrote this or that, find out what political party they ascribe to so they can say, “Oh, see, he’s a Democrat out to get Republicans.” More rarely, but still in South Carolina, the opposite has been said.

I have seen no one say that about Jim Davenport.

When Jim Hodges was governor of South Carolina, Jim Davenport asked him challenging questions, and wrote stories that Jim Hodges did not like. When Mark Sanford took over, Jim asked challenging questions and wrote challenging stories.

A lot of people, particularly those who feel themselves victimized by reporters, say that it is impossible to be objective.

Jim Davenport was objective, through and through.

If the average South Carolinian knows him, they know him because he is the guy who first broke news that S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford was “missing,” with a spokesman saying the governor had chosen, on a Father’s Day weekend, to take a hike on the Appalachian Trail. After making call after call, Jim Davenport got through to the former First Lady and the former wife of the governor. Jenny Sanford told him, in terse language, she didn’t know where the governor was.

Jim wrote down the line, but with just enough juice to let the whole world know what Jenny Sanford had communicated to him. She wasn’t happy with the governor.

And the story blossomed until the governor was outed as having taken a trip or two to Venezuela during his term in office to meet a “paramour.”

Jim wasn't there when Sanford got off the plane from Venezuela from his Father's Day trip, but I contend no reporter would have been there to meet him if not for Jim's scoop.

It was just one of many "gets" in his career. A "get" in newspapers isn't just when you "get" a politician in a pickle, though it includes many of those. A get is a big story.

Jim was there when the agreement to bring down the Confederate flag from atop the State House was signed – on a Confederate flag, no less.

His obituary from the AP said he helped lead the first statewide audit of statewide FOIA compliance among local officials, which I contend is wrong. We've only had two, and yes, he organized the first. But he also organized the second. The only thing I think I ever helped do for Jim was after the second. I made a point to tell the S.C. Press Association director that Jim deserved some kind of recognition for that work. He got a special commendation from the SCPA a little while later.

When the second FOI audit was done, I was editor in Chester. I was asked to head back to my old stomping grounds of Chesterfield County and see how that sheriff was doing. "Big Sam" Parker wasn't sheriff when I left, and I had met him once or twice, but the odds were his new office people wouldn’t know me. They didn't, and they balked at releasing information that state law says had to be released immediately.

With both audits, the results were taken and used by the lobbyists for the SCPA to request improvements in the law, since it wasn't working as well as it was intended to work. I don't think the law is great, in practical, day-to-day usage. It can be and is abused too easily by public officials every day. But it is stronger now than it was 20 years ago because of those FOI audits. Because of Jim.

On the SCPA website, there is an obituary for Jim, and also a 23-minute "oral history" video clip, an interview with Jim about the stories he covered and the battles he won.

Because Jim Davenport took a look at the law and figured out the clear meaning of the law said the party legislative caucuses, in this modern era the GOP caucuses, were public bodies themselves because they received public money and all the real discussion of public policy seemed to be done at that level, so Jim tried to cover them. They tried to keep Jim out.

They lost.

When Mark Sanford held his first cabinet meeting, this candidate who had run on a platform of openness tried to have a closed-door meeting. Jim objected, and struck the first blow in the fight to get them open.

I don't remember if the first was open or not, but there was a brief period of fussing and negotiation back and forth. State law was changed, with negotiations from Sanford and staff, requiring the cabinet to meet, at least at the beginning, in the open, but allowing it, if necessary, to be closed for certain topics. In other words, it had to perform as any other public body.

Sanford and his supporters might think with that change in the law that they had won the point. But no other cabinet meeting under Sanford was closed to the public, at any time.

Point Davenport.

In one other instance, mentioned on the oral history, when the legislature switched to being controlled by the Republican Party, Sen. Harvey Peeler, Jim recalls, wanted to close an early meeting in the session to remove state Sen. Hugh Leatherman from his post as leader of the Senate Finance Committee. Leatherman, at the time, was still a Democrat.

Peeler wanted to do that behind closed doors. Jim found out about, tried to get the new GOP leadership to commit to doing it in the open, but as a body, it wouldn't commit. So Jim approached senators one by one until he found one who said, "You been fair to me," and let Jim enter the chamber with him. When Sen. Peeler made a move to have Jim removed, other senators, either believing in transparency a bit more than originally thought, or perhaps sensing the negative headlines that might result from ejecting a reporter while trying to punish a politician for suddenly being on the wrong side of the aisle after an election, voted to let Jim stay. I don't think Leatherman was pushed out, either.

Jim was there for a lot of the history that has been made in the past 13 years, and the one thing everyone said about Jim was he was fair, objective. And he was great.

If you met friends, you might hear tales about guy with a wicked, slightly off sense of humor. Goofy smile. He used to be part of our card game for a couple of years back in college.

Being at his funeral, a lesson I learned was I need to know my friends better, and I need to not compartmentalize them so much.

But the really surprising thing about that funeral, which had a sizable contingent of journalists at it, and perhaps a public official or two, though I didn't catch any, was that the funeral wasn't about Jim Davenport, the mover of events, the rattler of government cages, Jim, the just-damn good reporter.

The funeral was a mass, and it was about Jim Davenport, the Catholic. I don't remember it ever coming up when we were back at USC, but of course, for most kids, particularly those taking a liberal dose of liberal arts classes, your religion isn't a topic of discussion at college. And if it had come up then, well, I had begun a long period of serious lapsing, so it probably wouldn't have made us any closer. We were buds who played some cards, worked on student publications together, made jokes about the student reporters who thought they were good but ... weren't. And we made a LOT of jokes about the university president.

But in the intervening years, I lapsed less and less and have tried to make a better go of my faith.

I knew Jim was married and had heard him talk about his wife a few times. But I didn't know he was a father.

If you knew Jim Davenport at all, you probably knew the reporter. But to the priest giving the sermon at the funeral mass, his career went almost unmentioned.

It couldn't go completely unmentioned, because, if the priest wasn’t sure, I can guarantee it for him. Jim was a good reporter, and he was the kind of reporter he was, because he was a good Catholic.

In the movie "The Siege," Denzel Washington plays a goody-two-shoes, completely-by-the-book, black-and-white, good-and-evil, never-the-twain-shall-meet FBI agent. He was, simply put, too good to be true, and I was on the verge of writing the movie off. But halfway through, Annette Bening's fallen-from-grace CIA agent says she has been sizing him up.

She says, "Catholic school boy," and he replies, "St. Raymond's, in the Bronx."

The first time I saw it, I actually shouted out in the movie theater. I realized that there was a possibility he could be that good and that uncompromising. I think the character might have been talking about the boys' high school and not the elementary school, which I attended. But the indoctrination in what is good and bad and what is fair was strict at both.

It was an "aha" moment.

When I saw St. Joseph's Catholic Church listed as the place of his funeral mass in the obituary, I had the same kind of moment.

"Well, that certainly explains it," I said.

Being a good reporter (or fictional FBI agent, for that matter) isn't the province of a parochial school or even of the Catholic faith. Goodness and fairness is taught in many places.. I am not saying you have to be a good Catholic to be a good reporter. Too many good reporters have been without faith.

But Jim Davenport was as good as he was because he was a Catholic. It had to inform his sense of fairness, but also his dedication to his readers. He believed in the truth, both little t and big T.

I didn't catch the name of the priest who said Jim's mass and gave the sermon. But during that sermon, he talked about Jim's love of his faith, and of its symbols. I've not been to enough funerals to know even what a full-bore Catholic funeral mass might be. The one I remember most, my Aunt Kathleen's, I remember as much for the fact that I was allowed to give a eulogy for her, and Catholics generally don't allow eulogies.

But this priest, I think, sensed he was going to have an audience he might not normally have in attendance. I think he knew he was going to have a higher percentage of non-Catholics. So he went over carefully, the symbols used. A white pall was put over the casket. This is used as a remembrance of baptism, when Catholic children are put in a white baptismal gown (even us guys). There was a candle, like the candle given at baptism. The casket was sprinkled with water, again, a reminder of baptism, which our faith tells us removes the taint of original sin and sets the clock anew for us, giving us a chance to make our way to heaven.

And incense was used. It was used back in the ancient days to remove bad odors, but it is considered a pleasing fragrance, both to man and to God.

The incense rises, the priest said, as if going to God, to ask if Jim had led a "fragrant life," one pleasing to the Lord.

The priest had made clear that Jim was a very good Catholic. Jim didn't go through the motions, and he had his beliefs.

I never knew that about my friend, or that he had a daughter. We were both journalists, USC grads, card players, scoundrels (at times). But we didn't share with each other perhaps the two most meaningful "traits."

Catholics, and fathers.

I will miss my friend for what I did know about him, but I will miss him even more for what I found out too late about him.

My parish priest likes to confuse people, not on purpose. But he asks all the time, "Do you want to be a saint?" And people tell him no. He is shocked, he says, shocked.

If he asked, "Do you want to go to heaven?" they would of course say yes. They just don't want to be saints to do it. But the questions are one in the same. To go to heaven is to be a saint, and to be a saint, one must be worthy to go to heaven, head to the front of the line.

We are called to be saints, my priest says frequently. Everyone is called to be saints, and Catholics have no excuse for not knowing that is their calling.

So like I said, I was surprised during that funeral mass for my old drinking buddy.

It sounded, I swear I do not exaggerate, like the funeral mass for someone who might be a saint, and if not, is on the express elevator through Purgatory.

If so, an awesome story. And a roomful of the best reporters in the state of South Carolina might have missed it.

AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

AP Reporter Jim Davenport dies

I saw this news first in an article on The State newspaper, which burns a bit.
Jim Davenport was always smiling. Except when he was on a story, and he was dogged and serious beyond belief.
I once had an editor tell me I was an iconoclast. I had to look it up. It's someone who shatters deeply held beliefs. But that was Jim, actually.
Journalists have a saying. "If you're Grandma says she loves you, check it out."
That was Jim. He would work a story to the bone, and if it was true, overwhelm you with the facts. If it wasn't, once he knew for sure it wasn't, he would happily move on to the next, none the wiser probably that they had Jim Davenport on their heels.
So why does it burn to read it from The State? Two reasons.
First, there is a widely held misconception that Gina Smith of The State is the reporter who took former S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford out over his scandalous trip to Venezuela on Father's Day weekend to see his paramour.
Gina Smith is a decent reporter. She was the one at the airport when Sanford got off the plane. But she doesn't flip a coin with a fellow reporter to see who got to drive down to Atlanta to meet that plane if not for Jim Davenport's initial reporting on this story. Jim broke it wide open. He got the first tip about Sanford being missing in action a few years back. He broke open his list of phone numbers and got cranking. In his list was a direct line to the island home of the first family, and he talked to former First Lady Jenny Sanford, who told him she had no idea where her husband was. The direct quotes he got and used were tantalizing enough that it put other reporters on the trail.
Jim Davenport, before and after, owned that story because he got the scoop. He later built a ton of additional scoops on top of it, about Sanford's use of state planes and private planes to travel. In the end,
It's not a knock on Gina Smith. Just the fundamental way I understand scoops and building stories.
Gov. Mark Sanford had to pay what still remains the biggest ethics fine in state history, and that started because Jim Davenport asked questions.
That's all he did, really. Ask questions. If the answers were -- if the truh was -- that Mark Sanford had used those planes and traveled completely in accord with state policy and law, there's no story. But Sanford did otherwise, and Jim's questions led to the truth being revealed. Again.
The second reason it burns, a little like indigestion, is that a prior story run in the The State about Jim Davenport receiving the Order of the Palmetto for his work, written by The State, showed them taking a little pride in Jim's award. Jim used to work for The State, you see.
He started out as a business reporter, but moved over into government coverage. He has made his mark, at the AP, as a government reporter. Why not at The State?
Many years back, as some friends and I gathered, with Jim, to have a night of poker and steaks in remembrance of another mutual friend who had passed on, Jim told me why he had left the state.
I only have his version, but I tend to believe it, having run into, on other occasions, some of the others involved. Let's just say his editor wouldn't let Jim be Jim and ask questions about a political ad being run by  former Gov. Jim Hodges. Jim wanted to "truth squad" the ad.
It might not have led to a different result in the election. But the voters would have been better served had the questionable ad been vetted.
Jim was out the door pretty soon afterward, because his bosses didn't back him up. 13 years at the Associated Press have proved The State made a pretty stupid decision.
Jim didn't want to vet the ad because he was a Republican trying to slam a Democrat. There are plenty of Republicans, Sanford included, who would say they are sure Jim was a Democrat because of the way he went after them. But he was never going after them. He was going after the truth. He didn't take sides, ever. He just asked questions, and he sent an example for most reporters in this state that they sadly do not come close to living up to.
That example, through countless stories, was something Jim gave me time and time again.
I can only say I did one thing for Jim. Well, other than helping him proof some pages and copy editing one very poorly written story for Portfolio Magazine at the University of South Carolina, back in the day.
The official story from the AP says that Jim Davenport organized the "first" audit of public officials' compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. That is true, but leaves out important information. Jim Davenport organized ALL the audits of the public officials' compliance with the FOIA. When I was editor at The People-Sentinel in Barnwell, I got a call from Jim Davenport or from Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, asking if we would be willing to cooperate in a project.
Essentially, our reporters would go to communities that we never covered and would ask for records at police, sheriff's departments, county, city and school government offices. We would ask for records we know would have to be turned over immediately, and see what happened.
Reporters from other communities would come to Barnwell and Allendale counties and do the same. Because while the FOIA exists for the public at large, it is used primarily by media outlets and reporters tend to get treated more favorably than the public at large. That's what we learned.
That was back in the '90s.
In the 2000s, Jim decided we ought to do it again.
They did all the counties in the state except one, because something happened to a person. Because Rogers knew I had worked in Chesterfield County from 1994 to 1997, he knew I would know where to go to get some information. So I drove over to Chesterfield, went to the courthouse, the Sheriff's Office and asked for some routine police reports that would have to be turned over. I did not get them.
It gave Jim and crew another piece of data for the second audit of public officials compliance with the law.
Jim believed in freedom of information, and he didn't just complain about being personally stonewalled at time, which is what most newspapers and most reporters do. He did something about it. He got hundreds of people involved asking questions and proved that the FOIA is not quite followed as it ought to be.
A publisher boss of mine once told me while we preparing some background information on a local humanitarian type fellow who was dying that it issad we always wait for their deaths to run those stories.
"They should smell the roses," he said.
I said I don't have to wait until he died to run it. But I did have some more information to gather and that person did not get to smell the roses, unfortunately.
Jim got to smell the roses, I believe.
The one thing I did for Jim, after participating in that FOIA audit and hearing a couple of names of people that were going to be recognized by the S.C. Press Association, was mention to Bill Rogers that we should do something to recognize Jim Davenport. I didn't know what, but I made my feelings known.
I later heard from someone, somewhere, the SCPA had indeed given a special award to Jim Davenport.
Jim's obituary makes mention he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto. I am frankly surprised Gov. Nikki Haley went to such lengths to award it to him personally. It says she actually went to his house and visited with him for more than an hour before giving him the award. My wife thinks it went so long because Jim probably took the opportunity to grill her about something.
The Order of the Palmetto is the top award that can be given to a civilian in South Carolina for service to the state. With the short shrift given to the media these days, particularly to newspaper folk, particularly by conservatives, it is a stunning testament to his ability to do his job with excellence both in coverage and excellence in being fair.
My college experience with him was of him as the editor of Portfolio. A literary magazine with some reporting in it. His predecessor tried to make it more newsy. He continued that. His successors tried it to. So, as his obit says, he caught the news bug at USC. I can't say I was there when the greatness began. I think I was down the hall a couple of doors, however, when greatness began.
He was this goofball, with this huge smile, his eyes hidden behind the thickest Coke-bottle glasses on the planet. My picture of the man is him sitting at a dive of a rental house, under the water tower in Columbia, just off campus, staring at his poker cards, laughing as he or one of us recited a friend's mantra at the beginning of each hand.
That goofball I remember, that is the man, just a bud among drinking buddies. I can't believe he is gone.
But the byline, "By Jim Davenport, The Associated Press." I am thunderstruck that that awesome one is gone.
South Carolina is poorer for this loss.
When you seem him, Jim, say hello to Son, and I hope you have some nickels.
"Five will get you in the game."
RIP.

The 2012 Christmas Letter

I've had a long-standing tradition of writing a year-in-review Christmas letter for my cards. Started before I met my lovely bride. Since meeting and dating her, had a lot more stuff to write about.

People on the Christmas card get first dibs, but here it is now.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Friends and family,

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.

Yes ... the letter at Christmas. We are come to it again.

I’m doing better than last year, at which time I wrote the letter on Christmas Eve. Still, we are days from it.

The year in review for the Guilfoyles  has some highs, some highers and a couple of not lows, but not greats.

I remain a copy editor and page designer working in Hickory, N.C., designing newspaper pages for the Florence, S.C., group of papers since October of 2010. That sets a milestone for me. Twice before I had worked in North Carolina, and the longest of those jobs lasted just seven months. The other just three. So in two prior jobs, I had not managed to work a full year in North Carolina. I’ve been at it more than two years now. 

It remains a nice job, but it’s a LONG commute with terrible  hours. But it keeps me in newspapers until I can figure out a better long term move.

I won three design awards in the S.C. Press Association annual contest, including a first place, so I’ve still “got it.”

Patricia is now firmly ensconced in the Diocese of Charlotte N.C. She is the editor of the Catholic News Herald. She is considered pretty valuable, though sometimes I don’t think she realizes how much. But I see the way some folks react to her and what they say to her. I don’t say it often enough, but I’m pretty proud of her. She actually, just days before, got a pretty major scoop on a story related to the HHS mandate. Her web reporter says her story became the primary source for it on the Google. Maybe on the entire Internets.

Her website is really taking off, thanks to the redesign she did, and the reporter she hired. Her other reporter twice went overseas, one time on pilgrimage and another time on an “ad limina” visit our bishop made with others to visit the pope.

One of the biggest things for both of us professionally brought something we never thought could happen -- we worked together, somewhat. She got a credential for her paper to cover the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Charlotte this year. In her preparations, she wanted someone who is, unfortunately for his eternal soul, more of a reporter than a Catholic, but Catholic nonetheless. And so I freelanced to cover the convention. 

She wrote some stories as well, and we tried to get the Catholic take on issues as locked in stone as abortion and contraception but others with more common ground such as immigration and health care.

I had take time off from my regular job to do this project for her, but I loved it. I have links to all my stories on my blog (address below) but I summed the whole experience up in my essay, “How I spent my summer vacation.” I spent it working. But it was a huge event to cover, and I wrote a ton of stories in a short period of time. Spending a lot more time doing just editing and design, I sometimes wonder if I can still do the reporting that I love so much. This proved I can.

Normally I just write to comply with AP Style, but this time Patricia and the rest of her staff had some extra work making sure that what I wrote also confirmed the catechism.

I wrote a couple of other stories from some S.C. papers, took a few pictures here or there. I live tweeted and took Internet video, the most interesting an interview with a woman, a man and a polar bear. You read that right. It’s on my blog. 

On the health front, I had surgery on my right eye in April and was out of work for about a month convalescing. Got to watch “The West Wing” on DVD. All of them. And I was stir crazy after a week. The right eye still has a stitch in it, but the vision is much better. That, coupled with a new special contact lens for my left eye led to my seeing a meteor, HUGE one, on my way back home in December. A Geminid meteor. Never seen one really before. It was amazing. 

Now with all the career junk out of the way, we turn to the most important topic of our family life. We have to say that sometimes it seems like our days just run together and we don’t get to do much. But then we look back and realize it has been a pretty amazing year for our son, Stephen Christopher. He has been on a few adventures with Mommy, and he has embarked on new chapters.

He is now 6, if you can believe it. He got a party from his aunties and uncle in Spartanburg, then one with a few friends here.

He “graduated” from his pre-school, Field of Dreams, and started kindergarten in September. 

His teacher, Mrs. Knox, remarks frequently how bright he is.

Another adventure for him was a recent trip he took with his mommy. In July, he went down to Florida to visit his cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Larson and aunt and uncle.

But a couple weeks back, he made the same trip, but this time he rode down on an Amtrak train. The hours of the train trip are not great, leaving Columbia at like 1 a.m. to arrive in Palatka, south of Grandpa’s house, around 8 a.m. And coming back, it’s leave at 10ish to arrive at 4 a.m. But it removes a lot of worry I have about them driving. It also is about the same cost as it would be paying for gasoline down and back. He enjoyed it.

Patricia is really good about framing trips like that as adventures, and he responds well to them.

She also took him to the mountains to go panning for gold and jewels. He got some really shiny ... rocks. But they are treasures to him.

As I wrote last year, he continues to amaze us, all the time. On top of everything else, he is basically a sweet, sweet kid.

Harry and Annie are doing well, though Harry continues to get a little bit more cranky, a little bit more lazy every day.

We know we haven’t been around or been in touch as much as we could. We are doing well, but our life is just non-stop hectic most days, so that when we get some free time together, we just generally want to do something quick and easy and together. But never doubt our affection.

Have a merry Christmas. (Email still the best way to reach me. I check it every day.)

We love you.

Stephen, Patricia, Stephen Christopher, Harry and Annie

December 20, 2012