Loudoun Independent editor John Geddie dead at 70

I’m coming off the end of a seriously busy week that’s seen me traveling (locally) a bit more than usual so I was ready to just unwind a bit when I got home this afternoon. A quick grab at the mailbox after parking the car, I began sorting through the mail even as I walked in the door. I noticed the weekly Loudoun Independent in the stack and flipped it to the front to catch the headlines. This local paper is small but it’s got some great reporting and the editorial writings of one of the sharpest men in the local news biz, John Geddie.

I wasn’t prepared for the headline under the grainy black & white picture on the front page.

John Geddie 1937 – 2007.

John Jay Geddie, 70, a journalist and newspaperman, died Aug. 22, 2007 at Inova Fairfax Hospital from kidney failure and pneumonia related to the treatment of cancer. He was a long time resident of Sterling, Va.

He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Shannon LaNelle Geddie of Sterling and a son, John L. Geddie of Reston, a brother Michael Geddie of Kilgore, Texas, as well as many beloved nieces, nephews, and friends.

I’ve mentioned this man several times in my posts here over the past couple of years. I’ve had the opportunity to shoot some e-mails back and forth with him – and he was cantankerous on occasion, as his publisher at “LoudounI” said of him in her editorial – and I always found him to be forthright in his opinion and well spoken in his expression of it. As much as anyone can do so with a connection as thin as a line of e-mails, I am mourning his passing tonight and the loss that passing represents to those of us whose lives he entered, even if only for a few paragraphs a week.

To his family and close friends, my sympathies. To his fellow newspaper colleagues, please be assured that at least this fellow Loudouner appreciates your determination to soldier on as John himself did when his good friend (and mother of the current publisher) Beth Miller passed on. We grieve with you and we wish the best and better news for you to come.