End of the Year Awards

In the spirit of ABJ columnist Bob Dyer's annual "Bobby" awards, which continues to provide holiday laughter for our house, I had been a saving a few end-of-the-year feux pas of my own worth noting.

Now that Bob has penned his thoughts in today's paper (I can only wonder which ones he wanted to add but were cut for space), here's a few additional items that even Bob might appreciate .. and for the record, my heart skipped a beat when I saw my name in the Bobby Awards ... for a moment I wondered "oh my, what did I do????" So Bob .. these are for you.

WORST BABY ANNOUNCEMENT: Cavs Guard Larry Hughes.
When asked about LeBron's new infant son during the Finals last year, Hughes remarked, "Five toes and Five fingers. He's beautiful." Hmmmmmm. Not sure what kind of babies Hughes has been holding, but thankfully each of my sons was born with ten of each.

WORST PRESS RELEASE: Akron Public Schools.
The district's Friday Nov. 2 release mentioned a news conference to discuss the "future of the school district" coming up on Monday. That's like saying "Mars attacks New Jersey! Film at 11!" No one wants to wait three days to find out what the big announcement is with a tease like that. Fortunately, multiple sources were able to tell me that Superintendent Sylvester Small was stepping down, so I had the story. Other news organizations debated it all weekend before Small made it official on Monday. I felt bad for him though. He should have been able to release his decision in one setting, and instead, the announcement lacked punch because his decision had already leaked out.

WORST PRESS RELEASE #2: In mid-November, our newsroom received a frantic call from a local police PIO saying "where are you guys?" Turns out there was a 2 p.m. press conference with every police agency in the area ... every gun slinger from township chiefs to the U.S. Marshal. Unfortunately, while they did a good job of getting everyone together for a press conference to announce a series of major arrests, each department thought the other was in charge of actually notifying the press.

WORST PRESS OFFICIAL NAME: Rex Nimrod.
Yep. That was his name. Nimrod was the spokesman for the Fire Fighter Challenge that sparked competition in downtown Akron in October. He was a really nice guy and had great information on the event. I felt bad when I asked him to say his name again because I thought he kidding when he said "Nimrod."

BEST NAME GIVEN AWAY: Jenny Rumor.

Jenny was a college student at the U of A with future thoughts of a career in broadcasting. She even had some fun videos up on YouTube that featured her camera skills. I told her I thought she had the perfect name to be a big-time music jock. Jenny Rumor?!??! Most jocks have to make up a moniker like that, and she was born with it. Keith Kennedy at WKDD or Ed Esposito at Rubber City Radio would certainly hire her in a heartbeat. Jenny recently e-mailed me from her new job in public relations and put "Rumor" in parenthesis. Turns out she got married and now uses her legal name. Ahhhhh c'mon!!!!!!

WORST USE OF "ERIC MANSFIELD": It's always nice to see your name as a fictional character, but this on-line author made EM into a not-so-nice guy in the latest chapter.

Most other comical notes ended up as blog fodder already .. but knowing the Akron news cycle, it won't be long for more great material to rear its ugly head.

Happy Holidays everyone. Eric