Sportswriter Dave Scheiber leaves the Times

by Eric Deggans

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He was wrangling pop culture coverage back then as the entertainment editor and we bonded quickly over our families and love for playing music. The announcement last week that Dave was leaving the newspaper after his job as a sportswriter was eliminated came after I had already produced a blog post on many departures around the building.

So to give a little more attention to a good friend, I figured I'd share the note Dave's last editor, Jack Sheppard , posted for display in the newsroom to announce Scheiber's departure:

"How do you summarize a 31-year journalism career in a couple of pages? How do you measure the impact Dave Scheiber’s work, as a writer and an editor, has had on the readers of the St. Petersburg Times? How do you capture the respect and admiration for him shared by his colleagues, who universally consider him one of the nicest guys they know?    • winning first place in the highly competitive 2008 national Associated Press Sports Editors feature category (as well as first place in the Green Eyeshade Excellence in Journalism Sports category) for a story about World War II vets from the Kids & Kubs softball team playing their Japanese counterparts in a symbolic game near Pearl Harbor.    • delving into controversial issues like the international epidemic of racism in soccer, concussions in pro sports and a four-part series explaining the drought of Triple Crown winners.

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