Remembering Tom Connolly

The amazing Tom Connolly, recently at WBNY studios.
                                                               Photo by Andrew Kat

     This is going to be a tough one.

    

     I’ve written remembrances before, here and elsewhere, and I’ve written way more obituaries than I can remember from my journalism days, but it is different when you are writing about a friend, a good friend, a longtime friend and a great person and friend to so many people. It is neither fun nor easy to say goodbye to someone like this, nor to say goodbye to parts of your life, actually or symbolically.

     But I am writing about Tom Connolly today, a friend for more than 30 years who without coincidence was part of some very big and very good parts of my and so many other people’s lives. Tom died about a week ago, and there have been several good remembrances and obituaries written about him, so I am going to reflect on my memories and experiences of him, to make sure people realize just what a great, kind, caring, intelligent, helpful and modest person Tom was and will always be.

     I don’t believe I can write a deserving, comprehensive obituary/life story of Tom, but Tom is best known for his involvement at WBNY 91.3 FM and other activities at Buffalo State College, his mentoring of so many broadcast and print journalists over the years, his work at clubs like Regan’s and his longtime producer/night host work at WBEN 930 AM.

     I first encountered Tom (although pretty much everyone knew of Tom within a few days of getting on campus) in 1981, as a Buffalo State College freshman of sorts who already had an associate’s degree under his belt. I was active in student politics and media first through my writing at the Record, and eventually came to his attention through my activism. But my two best memories of Tom occurred in 1984-1985, my senior year.

     The first was WBNY’s coverage of Election Night 1984, which included races from

local and city to the re-election of President Ronald Reagan. Tom was basically the leader of it all, serving as producer, on-air anchor/reporter and encourager of us all. Despite Tom’s amazingly easy going nature, he stressed on all of us to make this the most professional sounding new program that we could, from our news gathering, writing and on-air presentation. We used on-site reporting (Dave McKinley among others) from various places, repeated checks with local campaigns and the Erie County Board of Elections (among many sources), and we treated this as serious as any news media activity any of us had been involved in, whether print or broadcast.

     I covered elections and politics professionally for more than 18 years as a print reporter, and basically organized and edited the news coverage of the newspaper chain I worked at and I can say without a doubt that our coverage of Election Night 1984, due to Tom, Dave, Randy Bushover, David Debo, Carla Julio, Gabe DiMaio, Rita Tarnofsky, Barri Falk and so many other people was the most professional, and really the best, political team coverage I ever was proud to participate in and be part of. I apologize to anyone who worked so hard on this that I didn’t name them, but 32 years has affected a few brain cells.

     As many people know, Tom was an avid, nay, master trivia player; as a member of the 1977 Lancaster Central High School It’s Academic team, which won the entire championship, and captain of the 1978 team, which finished second overall, I found a virtual match to my trivia skills and someone who also approached these matters with humor. The 1985 WBNY team that entered the College Bowl competition was made up of Randy Bushover, David Debo, Tom and me, and I guess you could say we did rather well. We won the Buffalo State College tournament basically going away, with every game a romp, and Tom and I were among the four students as top individual tournament scorers named to the team that would represent Buffalo State at the regional College Bowl tournament at Ithaca College.

     While Tom would find a way every time we spoke afterwards to remind me of my correcting the proctor asking the questions when she mistook “paramilitary” for “parliamentary,” then answering the question correct, the quote all four of us, as well as those watching and on other teams during the Buffalo State tournament, would remember came from Tom. Every time the proctor asked us if we were ready to start, Tom, in a now hilariously reverent voice, would dedicate our match to the memory of Vic Tayback. Somehow, the four of us kept from bursting out laughing, and we received some classic looks of confusion and compassion from the other teams and officials. Sure, we all respected the acting of Mr. Tayback, particularly from “Alice,” but Vic was still alive and acting until 1990.

     I starting writing about music, mainly local original music, in 1985 after graduating, and a few years later, Tom became the editor of Buffalo Night-Life Magazine, where I had my main gig, The Hosey Report, for about 15 years. Many of you may recall that I am rather opinionated and strongly expressive of that opinion when it comes to music, and it often got me “in trouble.” Club owners, booking agents, band managers and musicians often got annoyed at what I wrote and/or how I wrote it, and more than a few, including some air personalities at various stations, took shots at me and asked that either my writing be heavily edited to exclude such criticism or that I be either suspended or fired from Buffalo Night-Life. Tom always stood up for me and stood up to these assholes and never placed restrictions on what I wrote or what topics I covered. On the other hand, we did have several strong conversations on what seemed to be my lack of concern over the effects of my columns, with Tom once calling me a “loose cannon” without a smile.

     Every example I cited above, and hundreds of not thousands of other interactions with Tom, were conducted with humor, intelligence and respect. He was bigger than life and never hesitated to accept a challenge or to do something, instead of just talking about it. Tom never forgot WBNY, the friends and colleagues he met and made there, and the mentoring he conducted with many people, as well as the programs he recorded, hosted and produced.  There are so many of us, including those who live here in Buffalo/Western New York, who didn’t get to see Tom often enough and are sad that we never go to say goodbye.

     So, I won’t say goodbye, because I don’t want to forget what Tom did or what he meant for so many of us, I don’t want others to forget, and I want people to come to see what kind of good person can walk and interact among us. But I will ask Tom to explain the dedication joke to Vic Tayback; I’m sure he’ll enjoy it like we did.