"Meg Jones was a true, professional reporter. Jim Doyle praised Meg's determination to cover the military. "It showed what a tremendous person she was."įormer Gov. "She didn't have to do that," Wissmueller said. Colleagues sitting near Meg, listening to her on the phone, wiped away tears for hours at a time. "When she was over with us, she was a reminder of home and she always brought a great attitude and such an uplifting presence," he said.Īnd after every trip overseas, Meg spent her first day back at work calling the loved ones of those she met, delivering personal messages. "I couldn't even begin to explain the impact that she had on the Marines," said Jayson Wissmueller, a former member of Milwaukee-based Marine reserve unit Fox Company 2nd Battalion. "All of this is going to be a lot less fun without her."įor untold numbers of service members from Wisconsin, she was a friendly face in a war zone, reporting on eight trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. "Newspapering is a great way to make a living because we get to work with people like Meg," he said. ![]() "You can pick up any one of her stories and see the dignity she gave the people she wrote about," Shastri said.īreaking news editor Gary Krentz worked with Meg for 27 years. That same touch extended to the characters in her stories. Newsroom newcomers always got a lunch invitation. If colleagues were sick or expecting a baby or retiring, they could count on a call or a card from Meg. "When she’d come into work at the start of her shift, she’d always take the time to say hi to everyone who sat near her, by name, one by one," Shastri said Sunday.Įlaine Schmidt, a longtime classical music critic for the Journal Sentinel, said: "Meg was one of the most honest, forthright people I have ever known." Journal Sentinel education reporter Devi Shastri said that Meg "made everyone around her feel seen and valued." Meg had a way about her that put people at ease, a sincerity and natural curiosity. She had a loud and boisterous laugh and was attentive to others. Other cattle disappeared from pastures, only to pop up days later from the depths of nearby lakes." Formica on kitchen tables and counter tops was sandblasted down to the wood. "Red paint was scoured off metal fire number signs outside rural homes. "An aluminum fishing boat was left wrapped around a tree like a girl's hair ribbon," she wrote. She revisited the town of Siren in Burnett County to recount a 2001 tornado that killed three people, injured 17 and flattened homes, farms and businesses. She would often head out to do one story and come back with the beginnings of two or three more. In 2003, she was part of a Pulitzer Prize finalist Journal Sentinel team for stories about chronic wasting disease. She wrote about snowshoe softball in Lake Tomahawk, exploring caves in Maribel and the important work of a spotter in a Park Falls fire tower. She covered floods, tornadoes and blizzards. She traveled nearly every highway and byway in the state, and was the definition of a general assignment reporter, swift and agile. Watch Video: Meg Jones' ride on a Blue Angels FA-18 Hornet Meg played a mean hand of poker and was so good that when she went overseas to cover the military, deputy managing editor Thomas Koetting's final instructions each time were not to take unnecessary risks, and not to play cards with the troops, because she could clean them out. She used the holiday cash to make trips to Las Vegas. ![]() She loved telling stories of working as a vendor at the old County Stadium. She also worked part time as a census taker and used to work the holiday rush at the post office. Everything you think about Wisconsin was Meg." "She was the classic Wisconsin person," said former Journal Sentinel reporter Meg Kissinger. "She was a George Webb's waitress, was on the crew team in Madison and was in the UW marching band. ![]() Meg was all Wisconsin, from her green-and-gold Green Bay Packers earrings to her red-and-white University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. Unflappable on deadline and fearless in the field, she could write about anything, from a 16-month-old snow leopard getting used to her new digs at the Milwaukee County Zoo to Bucks fans watching their beloved basketball team playing in Paris. She was 58 and just last month was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Meg Jones, who was the heart and soul of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's newsroom for more than two decades, died early Sunday.
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