Ask Craig Goodman about his brother Terry and he doesn't hesitate: "He was about love of family, love of the journalism profession, and trying to help out someone who needed it."
Those values are at the core of the Terry Goodman Memorial Journalism Scholarship, a program begun in 2004 to honor the 1978 Bowling Green State University journalism graduate who became an award-winning journalist in Northeast Ohio.
The Goodman Scholarship eventually will support two annual awards at BGSU:
- A $500 scholarship for an incoming freshman.
- A $1,000 award for a rising BG junior or senior print journalism major and current staff member of the student newspaper, The BG News.
The scholarship effort was created and is being coordinated by the BG News Alumni Society.
"These scholarships will help students today have the same opportunities at Bowling Green that Terry Goodman enjoyed," says Bob Bortel, current BG News adviser and business manager and classmate of Terry.
Goodman's journalism career was cut short by cancer in 1996. He was sports editor of The Morning Journal in Lorain from 1980 to 1989, when he was promoted to associate managing editor in charge of daily layout and design. He held that position until his death.
Terry was a fixture in The BG News newsroom. He spent three years on the sports staff before becoming sports editor in 1977-78.
Soon after graduating from BGSU, Goodman became the first Sunday sports editor of the Sandusky Register. He eventually won 39 awards in state and national journalism competitions, including three Associated Press first-place awards.
Goodman began writing at 13 for a newspaper, The Rural Urban in LaGrange, Ohio, and was sports editor of his Midview High School newspaper in Lorain County. By the time he arrived at BGSU in 1974, Goodman had already been a part-time sports reporter for The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria for three years.
A devoted family man, Goodman was a father of three and active in the community. He enjoyed teaching writing and journalism to area school children, and he umpired and coached his children's baseball, softball and basketball teams.
"I remember Terry always saying he was born with printer's ink in his blood. Being a journalist was so much of who he was," says Terry's wife, Nadine. "I think he would have been honored that this effort was being made in his name."
