The word icon is a much-overused word, but in the case of one San Diegan for whom words were keys to his success, he does deserve to be called an icon.
Tom Blair was a San Diego icon. And for those of us who knew him, it is a sad day to hear of his death. As the Times of San Diego put it this morning, “Tom Blair for decades told the city’s story in snippets as a magazine editor and a three-dot columnist” for The San Diego Union and Tribune.”
Blair also was editor of San Diego Magazine and former publisher Kevin Leap, in posting the news of his death, called Tom “the heartbeat of San Diego for years.”
Tom Blair was indeed that. His columns in the Union Tribune newspaper for all those years were the first thing people read and his “I on San Diego” column on the last page of each edition of San Diego Magazine was the first page its readers opened each month.
Tom also was on TV and also on the radio. Right here on Newsradio 600 KOGO. Tom and I had known each other for a while when the thought came into my head that he needed to be part of San Diego’s Morning News show. In fact, it was at the same time Cliff Notes is now heard, at 7:25am in the early 2000s, when Tom Blair was on the air here on KOGO.
He knew everyone and a lot about everyone, and if he didn’t, he found out. Because Tom Blair was a journalist, a very good one. But what made him the icon he became was that he really cared about his community. He really cared about San Diego. And San Diego will miss him.
(Photo courtesy Times of San Diego)