Former Toledo Blade biz editor dies

Sam Allen

Sam Allen, a former business reporter and business editor for the Toledo Blade, died Saturday at the age of 84.

Mark Zaborney of the Blade writes, “At The Blade, ‘he liked the variety of things he did,’ his wife said. As a business writer, he covered the auto industry and labor issues, but also small, local businesses. He became business editor in 1963, and his byline was atop ‘Today in Toledo,’ a staple of The Blade’s daily business page then. He continued to write in-depth stories, including a 1968 article on impediments faced by black-owned businesses.

“Mr. Allen in 1990, though 21 years gone from The Blade, wrote a column tracing the legacy of his predecessors as business editor, Frank Skeldon and Roscoe Treier, and introducing the newspaper’s expanded business coverage.

“He was a former president of the Toledo Tennis Club and collaborated with the late William Rathbun on a local history, Tennis In Toledo.”

Read more here.

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.