Obit of Reeves, Thomas - Jackson County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Gene Phillips 08 Feb 2009 Return to Jackson County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/jackson/jackson.html ===================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ===================================================================== ::NOT LISTED Santa Rosa Press Democrat Published on March 12, 2003 Former Ukiah Daily Journal publisher Thomas Reeves died Friday from head injuries suffered in a fall at his Loveland, Colo. home. He was 67. Reeves, a native of Duke, Okla., took over the Daily Journal in 1983 and stayed until 1989 when he was named publisher of the Hemet News. His career began by accident, said his wife, Beverly Reeves. He earned his college degree in geology at Phillips University in Enid, Okla. where he had a part-time job covering sports for the local newspaper. "One day there was an accident and they handed him a camera and told him to go cover it. He liked the business ever since," his wife said. Reeves earlier had been involved in journalism as a subject for a story. As a basketball player with Oklahoma City University, his team was featured in Look Magazine after the coach enrolled them in ballet classes to improve their agility. He continued his basketball career at Phillips University and was among the school's inaugural inductees into its athletic Hall of Fame in 1988. His career highlights include advancement in various organizations. He was executive vice president of Lehman Communications in the late 1960s, which owned a half-dozen Colorado newspapers. In 1981 he was appointed general manager of the Hearst Corp. Capital Newspapers in New York. A Westerner at heart, Reeves took the job running the Ukiah Daily Journal. "Ukiah was about as far west as you could go," said his wife. Six years later he was promoted to division manager within the Donrey Media Group, which owned the Ukiah paper, and moved to Southern California and later Alamogordo, N.M. to oversee the operation of several newspapers. While he was in New Mexico, Beverly Reeves took her own shot at running a Sonoma County newspaper when she purchased both the Healdsburg Tribune and Windsor Times. She sold both papers in 2000, two years after her health concerns forced her husband to retire from the newspaper business. In addition to his wife, Reeves is survived children Kathy Roth and Janean Ruegsegger, also of Loveland; Karla Pafume of Eaton, Colo.; Howard Roth of Grimes, Iowa; Kathy Barnett of Alamogordo, N.M.; Michael Reeves of Austin, Texas; a brother and sister, Jerry and Rebecca Reeves, both of Duke, Okla.; and 18 grandchildren. Services are today in Loveland. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Jackson County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/jackson/jackson.html