ELKTON, May 20, 2018 — We were saddened to hear that Don Herring passed away on May 12, 2018, at the age of 87. A journalist of the first order, he was associated with the profession throughout his entire adult life, including over 30-years in Cecil County. He took over as the managing editor of the Cecil Whig forty-seven years ago, and although he retired as the parent company’s executive editor in 1997, he was still on the job part-time. For many years afterward, the retiree wrote editorials and columns for the corporation’s publications.
After the city editor from the Indianapolis Star arrived in Elkton in 1971, he quickly developed a deep working relationship with the community, having a powerful sense of how to cover his beat. There was attention to details and coverage, as he brought a superb product to subscribers every week.
Over the last three decades of the 20th century, a former editor with a metropolitan daily directed coverage of the county’s top stories, including Hurricane Agnes and the fatal gas explosion in downtown Perryville, along with fine week-by-week coverage of everyday life. The Whig received many prestigious awards for outstanding journalism in his era. Over the decades, Don Herring guided the county’s newspaper of record through a changing newspaper marketplace as the broadsheet chronicled the County and became a daily.
In addition to his professional work, he was deeply involved in his community. This engagement ranged from the Singerly Fire Company and Emergency Management to his commitment to history. He valued the past, serving as a trustee at the Historical Society for about six years. In 1992, he wrote a book, “A History of the Cecil Whig,” which will always have a prominent place on our bookshelf.
In 1997, one of Don’s photographers, Jim Cheeseman, donated some 10,000 prints and an untold number of negatives to the Society, enabling future generations to see much of Cecil’s recent past. The editor and society trustee helped arrange this valuable donation, and the three of us sat around Jim’s Kitchen for months sorting out the body of work that spanned three decades, while trying to add some recollections to the images. Of course, the two of them also shared lots of stories about covering the beat locally, and on the city jobs both had before arriving at the Whig.
Thanks to Don’s encouragement and assistance this irreplaceable recordation of the last decades of the 20th-century are available to future generations. I still recall picking up the phone one day in 2007 and Don was on the other end. He was calling to tell me that Jim has passed away.
Don’s commitment to Cecil County Journalism and the community were strong in every aspect. He was a first-rate, old-school editor, who kept up with things and modernized news coverage here. We in the county are lucky to have had a professional managing journalist bring high-quality news to our homes every day, and those of us who worked with him in the community are fortunate to have had the enriching experience.
These times and those wonderful memories seem a lot more distant as we write this early on this Sunday morning in the middle of spring. Don will be missed and all of those who had the opportunity to work with him as an editor or as a volunteer in the community are fortunate to have known Don Herring.