Former Memphis biz editor dies

Lewis Nolan

Lewis Nolan, business editor of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal from 1978 to 1984, died Monday at the age of 74.

Tom Bailey of the Commercial-Appeal writes, “By 1978, he was appointed business editor. That didn’t stop him from writing an unusual first-person account in 1980 when the former British prime minister, James Callaghan, visited Memphis on a search for the ‘real America.”

“After Callaghan went to bed at Memphis Country Club, Nolan joined the VIP’s Scotland Yard bodyguard and press aide to hunt for a bar. They wound up at the Highland Strip’s Uncle Bobby’s tavern.

“‘The tuxedos and the British accents brought a rash of questions from the college-age crowd,’ Nolan wrote.

“He left the newspaper in 1984 to become vice president of communications at Plough Advertising Corp. and its Lake-Spiro-Shurman agency.”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.