John B. Gaines devoted life to journalism, family
By ALICIA CARMICHAEL, The Daily News, acarmichael@bgdailynews.com
Saturday, July 14, 2007 9:46 PM CDT
Daily News president and avid fisherman John B. Gaines always told his childhood friend John Clagett “he was going to live until he got pulled under by a big fish at the age of 90,” Clagett said Saturday.
On Friday at The Medical Center, 92-year-old Gaines died quietly, surrounded by family, after a short illness.
“The big fish got him,” Clagett said sadly Saturday from his home in Middleberry, Vt.
Still, according to many of those who knew him well, Gaines lived life to the fullest until his last days.
“He had much difficulty getting around, walking, but he came to church most every Sunday” at Christ Episcopal Church, said John Grider, who through the years did bookkeeping, accounting and tax work for Gaines and served with Gaines on the board of directors at Citizens National Bank.
Ewing Hines, who worked for Gaines for 40 years as a Daily News accountant, said Gaines was still talking about fishing on Friday.
“I called down at the hospital,” Hines said. “(His son) Pipes took the phone, and I heard him say in the background, ‘Tell him it’s a good day to flyfish.’ And I thought he was getting better.”
Now Hines can’t believe his “best friend” is gone.
“This hurts me about as much as anything that has happened,” he said. “He always had time to talk to me. He was a great person.”
Michael G. Catlett, who was Gaines’ financial consultant and friend, said Gaines “was a man who showed you personal attention. He acted like he really cared for you when he was talking to you.”
Gaines and Catlett often took walks through Bowling Green, before walking became difficult for Gaines.
“I used to tell him, ‘I enjoy our walks downtown because it elevates my status in the community,’ ” Catlett said. “He laughed about that.”
With Gaines’ passing, Catlett said, Bowling Green has lost a “treasure … a great man of integrity, manners and respect.”
Don Stringer, the former longtime managing editor at the Daily News, also talked about Gaines’ integrity.
“He always stood behind us” in the newsroom, Stringer said, “and he had no compunction, when we were right, about saying, ‘That’s what we’re going to do.’ ”
With “a wonderful dry sense of humor,” Stringer said, Gaines took the newspaper business’s ups and downs in stride.
Daily News general manager Mark Van Patten said many often overlooked Gaines’ vivid wit because of his usually serious demeanor.
But that demeanor came from his love for the newspaper, which was started by his grandfather, also named John Gaines, in 1882. The younger John Gaines, a graduate of the University of Alabama, took over the running the Daily News after his dad, Clarence M. Gaines, died in 1947. For half a century, he was the paper’s publisher.
“He really loved the newspaper and loved this community,” Van Patten said, “and that was always foremost in decisions he made.”
Van Patten added he has “never worked for a publisher that had stronger ethics than Mr. Gaines,” who “just loved newspaper and journalism and the business of newspapers in general.”
Less than two weeks before he died, Gaines was in his Daily News office, as he was nearly every work day when he wasn’t ill - or, in his later years, spending six weeks each winter in Florida.
“I could not believe it,” Grider said of Gaines’ devotion to his work at a time of life when most have been retired for decades.
Gaines’ mind was kept sharp because of his work, Grider thinks.
“We had a lot of nice discussions,” Grider said, “and for his age, his mental capacity was remarkable.”
Gregg K. Jones, who is co-publisher of The Greeneville Sun in Tennessee, president of Jones Media Inc., past chairman of the Newspaper Association of America - the largest newspaper trade association in the United States - and a former president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, said Gaines was planning, as recently as two weeks ago, to attend this year’s SNPA meeting in West Virginia.
For two terms, Gaines was director of the association. He also served as president of the Kentucky Press Association, as his grandfather had once done, in 1962, and was the 1980 recipient of the Edwards M. Templin Memorial Award, which was presented by the Lexington Herald-Leader to the Kentucky newspaper person who performed the most outstanding community service.
“He was revered in the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association,” Jones said, “and people were always excited to see him there, not only to hear what he had to say, but so they could learn from him.”
Jones, whose family has owned The Greeneville Sun for generations, said Gaines was as passionate about his family’s ownership of the Daily News as he was about the newspaper industry in general.
“He didn’t like the idea of newspapers being owned by impersonal public companies,” Jones said. “He cared so much about his community. He made that very clear, and that’s something our families shared. We’ve always placed a very high value on the bond between a newspaper and the community it serves.”
Gaines especially loved helping small businesspeople grow their businesses, Jones said.
“He considered his relationships with his advertisers and readers to be partnerships,” Jones said. “So many people in Bowling Green have built their businesses through (the) newspaper in Bowling Green. He loved that and seeing people succeed, and seeing Bowling Green progress.”
“At the same time, John was a fiercely independent guy,” Jones said - a newsman who at one time was a member of the Calendar Club literary group in Bowling Green, a former member of the Bowling Green Noon Rotary Club, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and a charter member of the Bowling Green-Warren County Jaycees.
Gaines was also chairman of the boards of News Publishing LLC, which operates the Daily News, and the Daily News Broadcasting Company, which operates WKCT-AM and WDNS-FM radio stations in Bowling Green.
In his free time, Gaines loved fishing, dove hunting, traveling both domestically and abroad, and good food, said his grandson, Steve Gaines, who is editorial page editor at the Daily News.
“My fondest memories of my grandfather will always be spending countless hours fishing next to him on the creek beds or countless hours in the dove field, either shooting doves or talking about Alabama football,” Steve Gaines said.
John Gaines was also was loyal to his church, where he had served on the vestry and was a trustee of the Delafield Committee.
The Rev. Howard Surface, who was Gaines’ pastor at Christ Episcopal Church for four decades, said that for years, Gaines came to the church several days a week.
“For many, many years my office was in the front part of the church on State Street,” Surface said, “and every day around noon I would see John. He made a habit of walking up State Street and he would stop at the church’s prayer chapel.”
Gaines’ also was devoted to his family, Steve Gaines said.
“My grandfather said many times the best thing he ever did in life was marry Mabel Sharp Gaines, and he was right.”
Gaines and his wife raised three children: Pipes Gaines, who is now publisher of the Daily News, Mary Gaines Dunham, who is retired from her job as national advertising director at the newspaper, and Mollie Gaines Smith, now of Louisville.
The couple also had several grandchildren, including Scott Gaines, who is Steve Gaines’ brother and works in the business side of the Daily News.
Steve Gaines said he now takes solace in the fact that his grandfather was surrounded by family when he died. He’s also comforted by the fact that his granddad knew the Daily News would stay in the Gaines family after his death.
“He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” he said.
Stringer said he now thinks one of Gaines’ greatest legacies has been passing down his sense of integrity to his children, and gave Gaines what he considers “the highest compliment you can give” in the newspaper business.
“He was a hell of a good newspaper man,” Stringer said, “and I think the community is going to miss him.”
http://bgdailynews.com/articles/2007/07/15/news/news1.txt
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Obituary:
Daily News president John Gaines dies at 92
Saturday, July 14, 2007 9:51 PM CDT
John Brooken Gaines, 92, died at 6:55 p.m. July 13, 2007, at The Medical Center.
The Warren County native was born Oct. 10, 1914. Mr. Gaines was president of the Daily News, where he had worked since 1938. He was chairman of the board of Daily News Broadcasting Co., which operates WKCT-AM and WDNS-FM, and president and chairman of the board of News Publishing LLC, the corporate publisher of the Daily News. He attended Western Training School and Western Kentucky University and graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in journalism. He was a member of Sigma Chi social fraternity, the Society of Professional Journalists (formerly Sigma Delta Chi), a charter member of Bowling Green-Warren County Jaycees, served on the Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church and was a trustee of the Delafield Committee at Christ Church. He was a former member of the Bowling Green Noon Rotary Club, the Calendar Club (literary club) and director of Trans Financial Bank.
Mr. Gaines married the late Mabel Sharp Davenport of Mer Rouge, La., on June 21, 1939.
He became publisher of the Daily News when his father died in 1947 and continued in that position until 1997. He was president of the Kentucky Press Association in 1962 - a position also held by his grandfather - was a former two-term director of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and the 1980 recipient of the Edwards M. Templin Memorial Award, now known as the Lewis Owens Community Service Award, which is presented annually by the Lexington Herald Leader to a Kentucky newspaper person performing the most outstanding community service. Mr. Gaines was also an avid hunter and fisherman.
He was a son of the late Clarence McElory Gaines and Elizabeth Brown Gaines. He was preceded in death by his brother, Daily News Editor J. Ray Gaines.
Funeral is at 1 p.m. Monday at Christ Episcopal Church, with burial in Fairview Cemetery. Visitation is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday at the church. Johnson-Vaughn-Phelps Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Christ Episcopal Church Building Fund.
Survivors include a son, John Pipes Gaines and his wife, Susan Leonard Gaines, of Bowling Green; two daughters, Mollie Gaines Smith and her husband, S. Russell Smith Jr., of Louisville and Mary Gaines Dunham and her husband, David Lee Dunham, of Bowling Green; and four grandsons, John Scott Gaines, Stephen Wilson Gaines, S. Russell Smith III and John Brooken Smith and his wife, Katie.
