The news business was a passion to Jack LaVriha, who died Tuesday at the age of 93 at a rehabilitation center in Charlotte, N.C.

But LaVriha’s retirement from the news business gave him more time to be a community leader.

As head of the Free Terry Anderson Committee, LaVriha led the efforts to free Anderson, a Lorain native who spent more than six years as a captive of the Islamic Jihad in Lebanon.

After Anderson’s release, LaVriha explained why he devoted so much work — and his own money — to the effort.

“I was a fellow journalist, and he is a journalist,” LaVriha, then 76, told The Chronicle.

Anderson was the chief Middle East correspondent of The Associated Press when he was snatched from a Beirut street.

After Anderson’s release, LaVriha organized a parade in Lorain to welcome him back.

Until recent years, LaVriha was the voice of the veterans parade in Lorain, Mayor Anthony Krasienko said.

Just about everyone knew LaVriha — and most liked him, but some held grudges because of his reporting prowess, Krasienko said.

“The story was that someone took a shot at his house,” Krasienko said.

The hard-driving, cigar-chomping LaVriha worked at news organizations most of his life, spending nearly three decades at The Lorain Journal, now The Morning Journal.

He also worked as news director at WEOL 930-AM, owned by Lorain County Printing and Publishing, the parent company of The Chronicle-Telegram, in the early 1950s, and at The Plain Dealer and in Sandusky.

He covered many stories, including gambling rings and the Sam Sheppard murder case. He even arranged for his own “sentencing” to the Warrensville Work House, LaVriha said at the time of his retirement in 1981.

“I lost about 23 pounds for fear someone would find out who I was,” LaVriha told The Chronicle.

When he got out, LaVriha shocked Clevelanders with tales of inmate Louie “The Dip” Finklestein, who controlled many aspects of prison life from his cell.

A nationally known pickpocket who had numerous guards on his payroll, Finklestein’s glory days ended when LaVriha told his story. Heads rolled at the prison and a number of guards were fired, LaVriha said.

LaVriha’s daughter, Martha Riggleman, of Loudon, Tenn., said the family “saw very little of him” when he was a newsman.

Later, he delighted in devoting time to fellow veterans and the Lorain community, she said.

Her mother, Olga, died in 1983. LaVriha soldiered on until he fell at his home in Lorain last year, she said. He wasn’t found for several days, and a leg eventually had to be amputated, she said.

Her dad was moved to a rehabilitation center in North Carolina, close to her brother Norman, said Riggleman, who also is caring for an elderly relative.

“He never wanted to leave Lorain,” Riggleman said. “He loved it because everyone knew him.”

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

 

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