Complete Story
08/22/2018
John Sheridan, business journalist who revived Press Club of Cleveland, passes away
John Sheridan got into journalism while waiting to start his first job teaching high school math after he graduated from John Carroll University in 1962.
Sheridan, who died on Monday, was known for working marathon hours, but disliked starting them early in the day. That suited the old Euclid News-Journal, his hometown weekly, where he might write 20 or 25 stories in a stretch until 3 a.m., but Sheridan soon found it didn't match teaching.
So he left it and spent nine years at the News-Journal, doing everything that included writing the first endorsement of George Voinovich, when the late former U.S. senator, Ohio governor and Cleveland mayor ran for state representative in 1966.
He worked part-time in sports for The Plain Dealer, then joined Cleveland-based Industry Week magazine as a writer and editor, developing its respected annual "America's Best Plants" awards. Veteran journalist Richard Osborne, a colleague, called him a master of research who became "journalism's foremost authority on manufacturing."
With a gift for friendship and mentoring, Sheridan helped revive the Press Club of Cleveland, served several terms as president, and was inducted into its Journalism Hall of Fame.
He was a 1958 graduate of St. Joseph High School whose lifelong devotion to the school continued after its merger with Villa Angela Academy in 1990.
In declining health recently, he died in MetroHealth Medical Center of injuries suffered in a fire in his apartment in Euclid, after he fell asleep while smoking. He was 78.
Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Elaine, and his sister, Kathy Ramsay.
