Friends, family, community remember longtime Press-Telegram columnist Tom Heessy

From sending ier city children to summer camp to securing funding for a World War II memorial on a remote Pacific island, Tom Heessy touched many lives in 31 years at the Press-Telegram.

Friends, family and others gathered at Long Beach City College on Saturday to remember the man called “Mr. Long Beach,” and reflect on the causes and organizations he cared so much about: social issues, veterans, active duty military, Notre Dame football, suicide prevention and underprivileged youth, among others.

A life of service

Above all else, Heessy’s life was marked by a desire to serve, said John Tien, his stepson and a retired U.S. Army Colonel.

His stepfather served in the U.S. Army Security Agency from 1954-1958 in West Germany translating Soviet radio transmissions from Russian into English, Tien said. Though he spoke little about his experience, Heessy always carried with him a desire to help veterans and active duty military service members.

Tien shared a number of his stepfather’s efforts involving veterans or active duty military service members over the years:

• Sending letters and special editions of the Press-Telegram to sailors aboard the USS New Jersey stationed off Lebanon following the 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut.

• Bringing the USS New Jersey back to Long Beach one last time before the ship was decommissioned.

• Raising funds for a memorial honoring those killed during the World War II Battle of Tarawa.

• Sending 100,000 books to service members fighting in Iraq during the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

Mr. Long Beach

Mayor Robert Garcia said Heessy has been a local fixture for as long as he’s been a Long Beach resident.

Garcia recalled a column about veteran homelessness.

“It was amazing, Tom’s skill to describe what people were going through — going out and meeting veterans, reading to them, them reading to him (and) explaining their stories to us as a community,” he said.

Former Mayor Bob Foster said he and his wife Nancy visited Heessy in the hospital and during his rehabilitation.

“We saw his struggle and his anxiety with simply not being the old Tom,” Foster said. “But despite all of this our visits were positive and uplifting … He always wanted to know what was going on … You saw that joualistic twinkle in his eye every time he talked about things that were going on in the city.”

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Heessy had a gift for making the ordinary, the everyday and even the mundane feel larger than life, Foster said. He made Long Beach feel like a small town.

Nancy Foster said Heessy convinced her to share her struggles with depression and mental health.

“Knowing that he had lost his son Dan and had written a series of columns called ‘Out of The Darkness,’ that gave me the inspiration and the strength to go forward with telling my story,” she said.

Giving thanks

Heessy, through his columns, impacted people of all walks of life in Long Beach.

Gina Rushing Maguire, president and CEO of St. Anthony High School, credits his work with saving her school and with reinstating its music program.

Today the school, Long Beach’s only coeducational Catholic high school, boasts 525 students and a thriving band program, Maguire said, adding that she plans to name the school’s band room in his honor.

In lieu of flowers, Heessy’s family is asking that donations be sent in Tom’s name to the Send-a-Kid-to-Camp fund, one of his most beloved causes.

Make checks payable to the P-T Send-a-Kid-to-Camp Fund and mail to: Long Beach Community Foundation, P.O. Box 32622, Long Beach, CA 90832.

Online contributions may be made by clicking on longbeachcf.org.