Longtime Press-Telegram columnist Tom Heessy dies at 80

Tom Heessy, a former columnist and longtime fixture at the Press-Telegram whose deeply personal anecdotes and colorful tales about Long Beach sparked moing conversations for nearly three decades, died from heart complications Saturday. He was 80.

Heessy’s death was met with sadness both by colleagues and those he covered during his 27-year-career at the Press-Telegram, which began in 1980. He produced four columns a week during that time, but continued to write columns on and off until 2013.

Rich Archbold, public editor of the Press-Telegram, hired Heessy when the proud Irishman, who was 44 at the time, looked west after newspaper stints that led to the sports editor gig at the Detroit Free Press.

“Tom had a love affair with Press-Telegram readers that lasted for more than 30 years,” Archbold said Saturday. “His Irish wit and charm came through in everything he wrote.

“Readers always came first to him. He really was Mr. Long Beach, a city treasure. He will be sorely missed.”

Thomas Anthony Heessy was bo Feb. 5, 1936 in Red Bank, New Jersey, to William and Etta Heessy. He took his first editor job at age 7. Actually, he created the job for himself when he published the “Heessy Family News” one day, with a story headlined “Mom and Dad in Big Fight.”

The “paper” was delivered to everyone in the neighborhood. Heessy’s “subscribers” got to read a he-said, she-said about the family budget.

Heessy studied at the United States Army Language School in Monterey. America was ratcheting up its efforts in the Cold War, and the language school had recently expanded to include instructors from around the world.

Russian became the largest language program, and Heessy served in the the U.S. Army Security Agency as a Russian translator from 1954 to 1958, before briefly working as a banana inspector in Florida.

As a newly married man, Heessy went to Wall Street to lea how to become a public trader. But he couldn’t shake the joualism bug. Heessy visited a library and found the addresses of newspapers throughout the New York area.

The Bergen Record in New Jersey offered him a job in circulation, but Heessy countered with an offer to work two weeks as a reporter, on a trial basis. He wrote for more than two years at the newspaper before moving on to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1962.

Heessy later started an alteative weekly newspaper called the Pittsburgh Forum, which would ultimately fold under financial pressure, and then he served for five years as press secretary to the mayor of Pittsburgh.

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In 1975, Heessy took a reporting job at the Detroit Free Press, covering environmental and social welfare issues, in addition to writing a weekly environmental column. He climbed to the rank of sports editor after stints as an assistant city editor, acting business editor and a govement editor.

In Heessy lore, his time at the Detroit Free Press came to an end when an executive editor called him in and said “One of us is leaving. Guess which one?”

He fielded offers from newspapers across the country, but Heessy headed to Long Beach because the Press-Telegram offered him a job as a columnist, which he always wanted to be.

Outgoing columnist Frank Anderson on Sept. 12, 1980 introduced Press-Telegram readers to Heessy as the “handsome Irish lad fresh in from the sports editorship of the Detroit Free Press” whose charm and wit were “equaled only by his considerable joualistic talents.”

His wife, Debbie Heessy, was known throughout his columns – and to readers – as “The Duchess.” She was by his side when he died.

Readers would come to know Heessy as “Mr. Long Beach,” as the Press-Telegram’s lead columnist and tireless writer chronicled city life with pieces that were heartwarming or hard-hitting, depending the subject matter.

“He was one of the greatest men I was blessed to know,” said Jeff Burroughs, a former Major League Baseball player with the Texas Rangers who co-wrote a book with Heessy on the Long Beach Little League World Champions called “The Little Team That Could.”

“He was so unique and smart and so fuy,” Burroughs said Saturday. “He would always bring a smile to your face and was a genius to work with.”

Heessy ran an ugly dog contest for charity, and spearheaded campaigns to help veterans. He also started the Press-Telegram’s Send-a-Kid-to-Camp fund which has raised more than $1 million and sent hundreds of youngsters to summer camps in local mountains.

“Tom was a Long Beach institution, not just well known in the newspaper world, but in the entire community through all the work he did,” Mayor Robert Garcia said Saturday. “We’re going to miss him.”

Heessy could weave a tale about his dogs, grandparenthood, his first baseball glove or trying to lose weight, then tuaround and expose local corruption, wax about presidential politics and criticize Veterans Day Parade organizers for baing veterans who disagreed with war efforts.

His career took him to Nicaragua, where he wrote about social unrest. And to the South Pacific, where he interviewed veterans for his World War II series. Heessy documented the aftermath of the 1986 Cerritos airplane crash.

A big fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Heessy could pick a fight with readers and politicians alike, but it was often his compassion for people that cut deep into the hearts of those savored his columns. He wrote about recovering drug addicts, a dishwasher who scrubbed pots and pans for 37 years, and a kitten whose death attracted 40 people to its funeral.

Heessy revealed the dark times and determination in his family, when his son, Dan, committed suicide in 2004. His series, Suicide: Out of the Darkness, netted sales from reprints, and the money was donated to the Suicide Prevention Action Network.

When Heessy retired in 2007, he described Long Beach as “a fun community, a very kind community and sometimes an absolutely crazy place, and the craziest people are, of course, the politicians.”

He suffered a mini-stroke just before he retired, but for months prior had battled the decision to leave full-time joualism. Heessy went on to write occasional columns for the Press-Telegram, but stopped in 2013 when he suffered another mini-stroke, endured heart problems and underwent surgery to replace an aortic valve.

Heessy was in and out of hospitals and tried physical therapy so he could walk again. He entered hospice in late March.

Funeral services will be private, but a public memorial is being plaed.