Family and friends celebrated the life and work of KCTribune Editor and Publisher Thomas J. Bogdon, 69, this week with testimonials and memorials around the city and online.

The veteran Kansas City journalist, whose 40-year career included reporting, editing and publishing, died January 16th at the University of Kansas Medical Center after waging a long battle with lung cancer.

Fond memories of Tom, as well as accolades hailing him as a Kansas City “journalism legend,” continue to appear on Internet sites around the area and beyond.

Longtime CNN Headline News Anchor Chuck Roberts wrote from Atlanta, “No one articulated the city’s problems and potential better. Tom was irreplaceable...I admired him greatly.”

“I ran into Tom all over town,” commented KMBC-TV veteran news reporter Michael Mahoney on his blog, www.20poundsofheadlines@wordpress.com. “Usually I saw him on City Hall stories. He covered that beat off and on ever since I started in Kansas City years ago.”

Mahoney noted that Tom’s reporting style was not one of confrontation. “But you don’t last in the reporting biz without some chops,” he added. “So you don’t always have to be confrontational to be good.”

In a heartfelt letter, Danny Rotert, communications director for Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II, wrote, “Kansas City lost a man of heart, tenacity and character.”

Rotert said he knew Tom for five years and the Congressman and former Kansas City mayor knew him for more than 30 years.

“(Tom) was a fixture of journalism in this city. He was old school, but came to apply his trade in the digital world — a world where he was badly needed. Those of us lucky enough to have had the chance to work a story with Tom know that he truly ‘worked’ a story. He would press every statement, question every release and ask a simple question that I wish more reporters would ask: ‘Why?’

“His voice was unmistakable. From the middle of the crowd you could hear his anxious shout — not anxious because he was nervous, anxious because he knew there was never enough time to answer all the questions he would have. The man could pack more questions into an interview than anyone could imagine. ‘One more thing, Danny,’ he would say with urgency. There was always one more thing.”

Rotert closed with a sentiment often expressed this week by the many who came to know and then care about Tom.

“Any of us would be lucky to live a life like Tom's in which — much like his interviews — every second was filled and every question was answered. Tom loved reporting, but he loved the people and places he covered even more. He was rare and will be missed.”

“The news of Tom’s death is sad and a loss to the profession,” penned Bruce Rodgers, publisher of Discovery Publications.

Tom reported for PitchWeekly in the mid-to-late 1990s when Rodgers was editor, and again for www.kcactive.com, an online news and entertainment site Rodgers now publishes and edits.

“He was an old-school journalist, a dedicated one and a workaholic to the extreme,” Rodgers added.

“Despite our many disagreements, we always had a mutual respect for the work we each did and for the importance journalism holds in maintaining a democracy and for its watchdog role. Tom Bogdon was one-of-a-kind, the type our profession doesn’t see much of anymore but still desperately needs.”

Rick Ralls, Fairway, Kan., reminisced about Tom’s days at the Kansas City Times, Kansas City’s original morning newspaper, which disappeared after a merger with its afternoon competitor, the Kansas City Star in the late 1980s.

“I will never forget him rushing in near deadline from a city council meeting to pound out his story for the next morning's edition. He was full of nerves as he hunched over an old Royal typewriter. He never missed a deadline. He was a newsman's newsman who got it right,” he said.

A former editor of the Northeast News, Tracy Abeln, called Tom “fearless and peerless.”

“I was privileged to meet and talk to and learn from Mr. Bogdon,” her post read. “This community will feel a great loss in GOOD reporting.”

Kansas City Star political reporter Dave Helling kept his sentiments on Primebuzz.kcstar.com short but sincere: “Tom Bogdon will be missed.”

Those who had been interviewed by Tom also expressed gratitude for his journalistic prowess.

"He would come in to Air Quality Forum and ask me the best questions,” said Jill DeWitt, chair of the Audubon Society. “I knew I was speaking with a great journalist after the third question. I'm sorry to learn of his passing. He will be missed. He will be remembered."

At his Mass of Christian Burial Thursday at Redemptorist Church, the Rev. Stephen Benden expressed the church’s gratitude and appreciation for Tom’s many years of dedicated service as a deacon. He fondly recalled a recent article by Tom decrying the vandalism of the church’s grotto. (The article can be found republished at kctribune.com.)

At the conclusion of the Mass, Bill Clause of KKFI-FM Kansas City Community Radio, sang a Woody Guthrie union folk song in honor of Tom’s exhaustive coverage of Kansas City labor issues, and his work on the Heartland Labor Forum program.

Tom’s long history reporting on organized labor in Kansas City began in the 1980s, when he worked at the Union Beacon. He went on to help start the Labor Times in the early 1990s, where he served as its writer and editor. After its demise, Tom became the editor of its competitor, the Labor Beacon until 2005. Tom continued to write about labor/management issues for other local publications, including www.kctribune.com.

Herb Johnson and Keith Nelson, former president and vice president of IAM Local 1650 TWA, respectively, expressed awe at the lengths Tom would go in order to hold those in power accountable for their actions or inactions.

“We were in the struggle against Carl Icahn around 1988-89. Icahn was infamous for buying companies and gutting them with no care about what happened to the workers or communities. Tom was at our office and we told him that when someone asked Icahn if he cared at all, he said, ‘If you want a friend get a dog.’

Tom interviewed us and then said, ‘Well, I'll just call him up,’ referring to Icahn. We laughed at him and told him Carl Icahn wouldn't take his call - a labor reporter from Kansas City.

“Well, Tom called him up and got right through to him, asking what his intentions were for TWA. We were flabbergasted. And Tom did his usual in-your-face interview. Tom would come at you with the tough questions. He asked Icahn if he thought it didn't matter what happened to the community when he takes over a company, and sure enough, Icahn told him the same dog story. That's the lasting memory (we) have of Tom besides that he was a great guy. His stories were always great reads. He always got the story."

John and Karen Wright, longtime Heartland Labor Forum volunteers, developed a more than 20-year friendship with Tom.

“Tom was a persistent news hound,” Karen Wright said. “Through Tom’s many questions and comments, he enlivened our conversations and widened the perspective of how the news was perceived by the Midwest and the different media players. He was always thinking of his next project, his next story and his next adventure. His actions were often the catalyst needed. Tom was a journalist, tried and true.”

“He had the labor movement in his blood,” wrote Bob Hemenway, chair of the Coalition of Union Retirees. He and his wife Thelma Hemenway, both served on the Jackson County Democratic Committee. “Tom was a good one. It seemed that he lived the life he wanted to live and just died out of it.”

“Tom cared about what happened to those of us in labor,” agreed Judy Morgan, former president of AFT Local 691, in her online post. “And he always did a great job reporting on teacher union issues.”

For Bill Grigsby, local TV and radio personality with the Kansas City Chiefs Network, Tom was representative of the “real news business” that he grew up with and loved.

“Tom was a page out of the past. When I got out of high school back in the 40s, newspaper reporters were genuine people who loved the news and loved people. In order to be a true journalist, you have to love it, and Tom Bogdon was cut out of that same pattern,” Grigsby said.

“Unfortunately, things have changed dramatically in the news biz and we are losing a lot of the camaraderie and family feeling that used to exist among journalists. That was part of the intensity of getting the news first and getting the news right.”

Friends and colleagues of Tom will gather at Kenny’s Newsroom, 3740 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo., at 6 p.m. Friday to share stories of Tom and toast to one of Kansas City’s late, great newsmen.