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Bob Baird, local columnist for The Journal News in Rockland County, has worked for the newspaper since 1972, spending many of those years editing or commenting on the news in the county he calls home. From 1976 to 1984, Bob was news editor, managing editor and executive editor in Rockland. During that time, the newspaper was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and twice won The Associated Press Managing Editors Association's national community service award.
Bob had been honored for his editorials by the New York State Bar Association, for his columns by the New York State Associated Press Association and for his feature writing in the Best of Gannett Competition. Bob also worked in a variety of editing roles in Westchester before becoming local columnist in Rockland. As local columnist, he has been honored by the Rockland County Association for the Learning Disabled as its Humanitarian of The Year in 2001 and by HOGAR in 2003 for his efforts to highlight the need for affordable housing in Rockland. In 2004, he received the County Executive Arts Award from the Arts Council of Rockland in the Literary Artist category.
Bob, who now lives in Nanuet, raised his three grown children in Suffern, where he lived for almost 30 years. He devotes his spare time to making it possible for people with disabilities to enjoy the game he loves — baseball. In 1993 he was a founder of the Rockland County Challenger Little League, for children with a wide range of special needs. In 2002, he founded Touching Bases, a similar league for 240 adults with disabilities, which now has affiliates in Buffalo, N.Y. and Richmond, Va., with others in the planning stages.
E-mail Bob Baird at rbaird@lohud.com
The first time I ever visited the Bear Mountain Inn was on a senior class field trip with my 1965 classmates from Morris High School in the Bronx.
We had a great day out in the sun and enjoyed the inn, what with a form of architecture none of us had ever seen before.
It was the [...]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never checked to see if a community levied a hotel occupancy tax before booking a room for a vacation, a business-related trip or any other travel.
If I’m going to Disneyworld, I’m not booking 30 miles away to avoid a tax. In fact, I’m probably not going to be [...]
No respectable journalist I know would throw his shoes at a politician, let alone the president — although, heaven knows, some of them deserve it.
But I prefer to do my shoe-throwing at the television at home, usually while watching professional sports events.
The last two seasons, I’ve worn out dress shoes, sneakers and deck shoes — [...]
Tomorrow morning I’ll be along for the ride when the Sloatsburg Memorial American Legion Post 1643 escorts Santa Claus through the village to distribute holiday gifts to children who come out to greet him when he stops on their streets.
It’s a tradition that spans more than 50 years, with the Legion members driving their railroad [...]
Yesterday they moved the famed “Survivors’ Staircase” into its final position to be part of the memorial being planned for the former World Trade Center site.
The staircase was the escape route for many who survived the Sept. 11 terror attacks and its preservation has been a goal throughout the recovery and rebuilding process at Ground [...]
The deck repair on the Tappan Zee looks great and feels great as you head from Rockland to Westchester — until you hit the plates.
I wasn’t expecting the heavy metal plates to still be in place on the eastbound bridge this morning and they came upon me before I had the opportunity to slow from [...]
Simon Properties, the folks who own the Nanuet Mall, have been all over television the past few days with a series of commercials touting gift cards for use that their various properties.
The first one I saw ended with a black screen with the names of two properties — Roosevelt Field and the Mall At the [...]
A couple of months back, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi dropped by our West Nyack newsroom to tout the findings of the state Commission on Property Tax Relief, including recommendations for mergers of government units including school districts.
Now there’s a proposal before Gov. Paterson that school districts with fewer than 1,000 students be forced to [...]
Walking into Barnes & Noble in Nanuet last evening, I spotted the store’s manager, Jocelyn Ford. I wrote several years ago about how busy her family always is with careers, school and a variety of sports and other activities.
We were waving at each other before I even made it through in inside set of lobby [...]
Sitting in the Tappan Zee Summit meeting called by County Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, it became clear that the public isn’t getting shut out of the process of determining the future of a Hudson River crossing.
There have been times during the process when I wasn’t sure the project team wanted much input or to have [...]
Copyright ©2009 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.
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