Morning, gang.
We’re bringing you a remembrance of the late writer and reporter Jerry Bledsoe today. It’s a long and complex one, which suits its subject.
I knew Bledsoe’s work long before I came to Greensboro because several members of my family were true crime fans. Bitter Blood, Bledsoe’s 1988 book about a strange and tragic murder spree that began as a series of stories for the city’s daily paper, The News & Record, is a classic of the genre.
In the mid-2000s, I began writing for the News & Record myself. By then, Bledsoe had long fallen out with his old paper and become a persistent antagonist. It made for some awkwardness in the newsroom, where many still loved and admired Bledsoe as an old friend and as a writer but couldn’t understand his lingering grudge against the paper.
My personal brushes with Bledsoe were few. In my early 20s, an editor at the paper asked me to call him about a story. Some old friends of his gave me several numbers, telling me they weren’t sure which would work. I left messages, didn’t hear back, and had to write we’d been unable to reach him by press time.
The next day, my phone rang, and Jerry Bledsoe — newsroom legend, North Carolina icon, New York Times bestselling author — was yelling into my ear.
“You never tried to reach me!” he said. “You can’t print that in the paper! It’s a lie!”
I stammered an apology, gave him the numbers at which I’d left messages for him. He checked and heard that I had called him and wrote me an email in reply.
“I don’t have any comment,” he wrote. “But you can’t tell me nobody in that newsroom knows how to reach me.”
Sometime later, when I’d written some more substantive things for the paper, I got another email out of the blue.
“You seem like a promising young writer,” Bledsoe wrote. “You need to leave that paper as fast as you can, or you’ll never be anything but a pissant.”
I showed that to a few of my favorite writers at the paper. They laughed and said he’d told them the same thing.
Given that tension, I never really got to know Bledsoe. Writing about him this week has made me sorry I didn’t. For one thing, I’d never before taken the time to examine the period before his Bitter Blood fame — the 23 years he spent writing a three-times–a-week newspaper column that was by turns hilarious, touching, tough, and vulnerable. That column endeared him to generations of readers across North Carolina and beyond and was a defining part of the newspaper and the city.
“His relationship with the paper was like a long, passionate love affair,” his old friend Jim Jenkins, a veteran writer and editor for the News & Record and News & Observer, told me this week. “It had some bumps and rough spots. He helped define the paper, and in some ways the paper defined him.”
I never knew that side of Bledsoe. But discovering it now through collections of his old columns, essays, and memoirs, as well as conversations with old friends and colleagues, has been fascinating.
It would be impossible to get at all of Bledsoe even if, like him, I insisted my editors give me much more space. I hope what I’ve written is fair and will make people curious about all of the man and the best of his writing.
— Joe Killian
‘A Hell of a Writer’
When Jerry Bledsoe died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 84, state and national publications lauded him as a brilliant journalist and author, a Southern raconteur in the tradition of Mark Twain.
Friends, former colleagues, and admirers recalled his decades of humorous and heartfelt newspaper columns of the 1970s and ’80s, which often championed underdogs and everyday North Carolinians. They remembered his triumphant leap to the top of The New York Times Best Seller list with 1988’s Bitter Blood, the first of a string of deeply reported true crime books that spawned TV movies and miniseries.
Bledsoe wrote more than 20 books, ranging from examinations of grisly murders to collections of humorous essays, from colorful travelogues to sentimental memoirs of small-town Southern life. He was a contributing editor at Esquire, and his work appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and New York magazine.
All that talent came with its complications. Bledsoe knew how good he was and had an ego and independent streak that often brought him into conflict with editors, authority figures, or anyone who questioned or criticized him. This could lead to fiery arguments and—on more than one occasion—Bledsoe’s sudden resignation.
Read the full story here.
Thanks for reading The Thread, a 3x week newsletter written by Greensboro editor Joe Killian and reporters Sayaka Matsuoka and Gale Melcher. Reach us with tips or ideas at greensboro@theassemblync.com.
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The Agenda
Can you believe it’s already mid-January? I clearly can’t—my decorations are still up (and probably will be for another month). But local government never stops, and today we’re bringing you upcoming decisions that’ll be made by local boards and commissions, which affect residents’ daily lives. Read on to learn more:
Guilford County
Board of Commissioners regular bi-monthly meeting
Thursday, January 15, at 5:30 p.m. @ Old County Courthouse on the second floor, 301 W. Market St.
The agenda will be posted here. Watch the meeting live here.
Board of Education legislative committee meeting
Monday, January 12, at 9 a.m. @
During this meeting, committee members will discuss legislative priorities. Attend in person, or watch it live here.
Board of Education monthly meeting
Tuesday, January 13, at 6 p.m. @ Community Education Center in the assembly room on the 2nd floor, 2703 E. Florida St.
Board members will vote on contracts and policies, and hear an update from the superintendent. Attend in person, or watch it live here. Some major decisions include:
- A contract and nearly $6 million budget with W.C. Construction Company for Grimsley High School’s baseball and softball stadium.
- An $894,686 contract with J&K General Contractors for the Ragsdale High School bleacher and accessibility improvement project.
- The North Carolina Department of Transportation is offering the board a total of $343,850 in compensation for the right-of-way and easements for the Huffine Mill Bridge replacement, affecting the Gateway Education Center and Bessemer Elementary School Campus.
- Budgets of $1 million for Andrews High School and $600,000 for Dudley High School to replace their air conditioning systems’ chillers.
- Approving the board meeting schedule and revising the academic calendar.
- Policy revisions on the selection of instructional materials, field trips, technology use, administering medication to students, and the recruitment and selection of personnel.
- A few other policies are recommended for repeal—ones pertaining to superintendent duties, resignations, and board hearings on employment actions—as the language within has been incorporated into other policies.
City of High Point
City Council regular bi-monthly meeting
Monday, January 12, at 5:30 p.m. @ 211 S. Hamilton St.
The agenda will be posted here.
Links to local board meetings and agendas:
Guilford County – Board of Commissioners
Guilford County – Board of Education
Greensboro – City Council
Greensboro – City Calendar
High Point – City Council
— Gale Melcher
