Joe Wright:
Was a library assistant at the Washington Post when I met him in 1968. He was doing that part time while trying to finish a degree at American University. News librarianship became his passion, and after many years at the Post, he became the librarian at the Trenton Times when the Post bought it, then came to the Miami News around 1979. He was there until the News, an afternoon Cox newspaper, folded at the end of 1988. Since then he's been archivist/researcher for WPLG, Miami's Post-Newsweek station.
Joe had a real love for news and research and was one of the best I've seen. At the Post he was responsible for marking/indexing the clips for filing, but in later years he really got into using online backgrounding databases and putting together reference tools like chronologies. Not to mention, of course, all new skills of editing and retrieving videotape.
I am going to miss him terribly, he's been that friend who was always there. Now he's not.
Joe died last night: he was 60.


Some photos of Joe in better times.