Colorful newspaperman remembered for charisma, fearlessness

Talk to friends and former co-workers of Frank Beaumont and you’re likely to hear him described in a number of ways.

Charismatic, good-looking, smart, egotistical, bigger-than-life and even legendary are just some of the adjectives used to describe the career newspaperman.

Although he was many things to many people, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone describing him as boring or nondescript.

After a long and colorful life, Francis Joseph Beaumont wrapped up the final chapter of his story on Jan. 9, 2016, dying at the age of 84.

Born July 25, 1931, in Detroit to Joseph Beaumont and the former Cecilia O’Meara, he grew up in Lincoln Park and never strayed far from his hometown, at least not for long.

His sister, Mary Stitt of Taylor, recalls her brother as a teen working on the Railsplitter, the Lincoln Park High School newspaper. Before that, he delivered newspapers for the old Mellus Newspapers in Lincoln Park, where he landed one of his first full-time jobs after graduating from high school in 1949. His family said he was a journalist by the age of 18, and later held a number of executive positions at several area newspapers.

He either owned or served as a manager at publications and publishing companies that included Cavalier Communications, LTD; The Milan Area Leader; Glenn Printing Corp.; Panax Newspapers; and The News-Herald Newspapers, which at that time was based in Wyandotte.

People who worked with or for Mr. Beaumont spoke about him in glowing terms, as a boss and co-worker.

“I owe Frank Beaumont a lot,” said Mary Ann Hammar, hired by Mr. Beaumont in June 1961, just two days after she graduated from high school. “He took me under his wing. I planned to be there only a few months. I did not believe in myself as much as he believed in me.”

Hammar was first hired part-time to work the switchboard, but later worked in the classified, circulation and production departments. She made The News-Herald her career, retiring in the early 1990s.

Although regular work hours were 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Hammar said on many occasions they would work late into the night to get the paper out and Mr. Beaumont would be right beside his employees, tie loosened around his neck and sleeves rolled up, until the job was done.

“He was very good to his employees,” she said. “Frank was The News-Herald.”

Charismatic leader

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Pat Andrews, former editor of The News-Herald’s Focus section and a reporter early in her career, called Mr. Beaumont the most charismatic boss she ever had, saying he was like something out of a novel or movie.

Mr. Beaumont hired her in 1970 to work at The News-Herald and The Guardian. Like Hammar, Andrews recalls him working late into the night when deadlines demanded it.

There also was another side to Mr. Beaumont that was undeniable. He was a handsome man and a sharp dresser.

“Frank, very frankly, was a ladies’ man and he dressed the part and played the part with his spiffy outfits and a penchant for Cadillac cars,” Andrews said.

Yet, there was still more to him, she said.

When Andrews became pregnant with her third child in 1971, joining two other employees who also were expecting, she described Mr. Beaumont as “amused and fatherly,” encouraging the women to come to work as long as they felt healthy, assuring the trio that Wyandotte Hospital was a short trip away and his Cadillac was ready.

Andrews and several other people who worked with Mr. Beaumont recalled a paperback book of columns he wrote titled “Velvet and Brass.”

Retired journalist Joan Dyer-Zinner jokingly said the columns were a bit heavier on the brass side than velvet.

She referred to Mr. Beaumont as a bigger-than-life figure who was at the helm of The News-Herald when she joined the staff as a part-time typesetter in the late 1960s.

Because work was being done at the building, a converted car dealership just east of Fort Street on Eureka Road, Mr. Beaumont allowed female employees to wear slacks. Previously the dress code required women to wear dresses and skirts, with no exceptions.

In what Dyer-Zinner described as one of his more memorable columns, she recalls he grumbled about women wearing slacks.

“In the past, I used to tell women that their slips were showing,” he said. “and now I tell them their flies are open.”

She said he was both velvet and brass when dealing with his employees. He was well liked by the staff, but said he also wasn’t one to be trifled with.

Craig Farrand, a former managing editor at The News-Herald who still writes a column for the newspaper, first got to know Mr. Beaumont in the late 1970s. Farrand was at the old Mellus Newspapers when he learned Mr. Beaumont had been editor and publisher of The News-Herald in Wyandotte.

Over the years, Farrand said he got to know him a bit more each time they met, sharing stories about newspapers, mostly agreeing on the role of community newspapers in reporting issues of importance to area residents.

“Some said Frank’s public ego was huge - but I think you have to have a big ego to deal with the pressures of the job and the criticisms you get for the positions you take as a newspaper editor,” Farrand said. “But when he and I chatted about covering news, that ego came secondary to a love of community, of the profession and of his commitment to excellence.”

Rod Kreger, who served on the board of directors when his father, William Kreger, owned The News-Herald, said he and Mr. Beaumont were partners in a print operation in New Boston.

They became close friends and Kreger grew to admire Mr. Beaumont for his moxie.

He recalls that Mr. Beaumont once wrote an editorial questioning why an American Legion building in Wyandotte paid nothing in taxes. A short time later he was attacked by a group of men who roughed him up, which Kreger said wasn’t an easy accomplishment.

“People picked on him because he was a very good-looking guy, but he was very strong,” Kreger said. “He was a Golden Gloves boxer.

Kreger recalled a particular incident Hammar also mentioned, but with a slight variation.

Hammar said she was told that Mr. Beaumont, who was operating a newspaper known as The Daily Express at a time when The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press employees were on strike, was threatened by men who put a gun to his head.

Kreger said it was his understanding that two “business agents” from a union came into his Wyandotte office in 1967 and made veiled threats of running him off the road if he didn’t stop publishing the paper.

“He was physically fearless,” Kreger said. “We tend to embellish things to make him more of a hero, but I don’t think anyone actually threatened him with a gun. He was such an interesting guy. His interests were boundless.”

Downriver newspapers pioneer

Charlie Burns was hired as a salesman with The News-Herald shortly after he left the Marine Corps in the mid-1960s.

“Frank was very energetic and positive,” Burns said. “He was a pleasure to work with.”

Burns praised Mr. Beaumont for converting The News-Herald to offset printing, which was a new venture and a bit of a risk. Until that time, the traditional letterpress method was being used.

Out of 140 newspapers in Michigan, Mr. Beaumont was proud The News-Herald was the 17th in the state to make the switch.

“Everyone told him they would never make that work,” Burns said. “It was a big focal point that we made happen. The clarity of print and pictures was phenomenally greater. It’s one of his great accomplishments.”

In addition to his life as a civilian, Mr. Beaumont served in the Navy Reserve from 1968 to 1982 in public relations, at times coming to work in his Navy uniform while on duty.

Mr. Beaumont wasn’t a politician, but he did throw his hat into the ring in a big way in the early 1990s. He made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Congress when he went up against Democratic powerhouse John Dingell.

He retired from his life in newspapers in 1997.

When it came to marriage, Mr. Beaumont gave the institution several tries.

“He married young, at age 20, and that didn’t work out too well,” his sister said. “Then he tried it again. He wasn’t very lucky in marriage.”

That is to say until he married the former Judith Koehn in 1994. The couple lived in Grosse Ile and Gibraltar before moving to Belleville in May 2013.

A journalist at heart

Judith Beaumont described her late husband as a man of accomplishments whose colorful personality shone through in everything he did.

If he had a favorite color, it had to be red, his wife said, because he had a large collection of red pens that he used for making corrections to just about any printed matter he got his hands on.

In fact, that’s how their relationship started. They first met through a mutual acquaintance. She was the marketing director for an adolescent drug rehabilitation center and invited Mr. Beaumont to become a member of the Community Advisory Board. A week later she had the letter returned to her, with grammatical errors pointed out in red ink. At first, it didn’t go over very well.

“Who in the hell does this guy think he is?” she recalled saying to herself.

But things worked out between them, as they were married for 21 years.

Even though his wife said they shared a great love, she knew there was a love that came before her and lasted until his dying day.

“The News-Herald was his first love,” she said. “I was his second.”

Mr. Beaumont spent his final weeks in a nursing home. Two days before he died, Beaumont said her husband kept mumbling: “How many days?”

She thought he was asking about how many days he had been at the nursing facility, but it turns out he had something else in mind.

“I got out the word ‘published’,” she said. “Even though he was dying, he thought about that damn paper. It was his whole world.”

Mr. Beaumont had two children, Norman “Skip” Beaumont and Yvette Beaumont. He also was the stepfather of Scott Neinas and grandfather to four children.

In addition to his sister, Mary, he is survived by two sisters, Edna Banick and Yvonne Beaumont. He was preceded in death by his stepdaughter, Dawn Gentz, and brothers William, Albert and Daniel Beaumont.

On ‘beautiful’ funerals

As might be expected from a man who had an opinion about everything, Mr. Beaumont wrote about funerals. He wasn’t a huge fan.

In one of his columns he wrote about how strange it seems for people to take time out of their busy schedules to drive to a funeral home and pay last respects to a departed friend.

“It’s strange because we’ve wasted a lot of time without once going out of our way to drop by and just chat with him when he was alive,” he wrote. “I’d like to be buried the day after I die in a pine box without flowers. Some say that’s stoic; some say it’s stupid. Meanwhile, I’ll keep leading a life like a cavalry charge, following the customs and extending the courtesies society has decreed proper when death visits.”

His family didn’t bury him in a pine box, but followed his wishes that a formal viewing of his body not take place. His sister said his remains were cremated and will be buried along with his parents’ remains at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield.

A private memorial took place Jan. 16, 2016, at the Holiday Inn Express in Belleville. The service was conducted by his friend, Brad Thomas, a Lutheran deacon.

The family suggests memorial contributions in Mr. Beaumont’s name be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, Greater Michigan Chapter, 25200 Telegraph Road, Suite 100, Southfield, MI 48033.

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