TomMitsoff.com -- 'My world and welcome to it'

Biography

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'My world and welcome to it'

When I was a youngster, there was a weekly television program on called "My World and Welcome to it." It was about a cartoonist who would use his own life experiences as the basis for his comic panels. What follows is my autobiographical sketch presented for people who have a need or interest in knowing. (Presumably that would be you, because it's difficult to stumble upon this page without making the effort to get here.)

My parents tell me the story that as a young child, I was able to read books verbally to them at the age of 18 months. This occurred at least in part because they used to read to me very frequently, and apparently I had the gift to pick up the ability to read at an early age. I remember the first day of first grade the teacher called me up to her desk and asked me to read a few words to her. For some reason, I remember reading the word "primer" to her.

Shaw School home page

Development of this gift was certainly encouraged by the fact that my parents founded and owned the community newspaper in my hometown of Beavercreek, Ohio. I grew up in their business in many ways. When I was in second and third grades at E.G. Shaw Elementary School, my father allowed me to compose my own newspaper, "Children's Monthly Paper," which he actually printed on the web press at his company. I, in turn, distributed the newspapers to my classmates, thanks to the tolerance of my teachers at the time.

Snoopy.com

During this period of my life, my interest was heavily into drawing and sketching cartoon characters. I made numerous picture books with stories illustrated by the characters that I enjoyed drawing, which included Snoopy and Woodstock from "Peanuts," Woody Woodpecker, Tobias the Reluctant Dragon (from one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons), and "Stan the Man," a puppet character from a local children's TV show which was on at the time called "Clubhouse 22."

I was also keenly interested in television in many ways. My parents made the unusual move of purchasing a closed circuit video recording system for me when I was in first or second grade. This was before VCRs and video cameras were commonplace. My siblings and I, along with our neighborhood friends, were the stars of many spontaneously produced television programs.

So the seeds for interest in various media were planted at a very early age.

CincinnatiReds.com

The second major interest of my life developed at around age 11 or 12, in the early 1970s. It was at this time that I began to follow sports closely - and in particular, the professional baseball and football teams from Cincinnati: the Reds and Bengals. I remember watching television one day and by happenstance a football game between the Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers was on. I remember that the Bengals won, which apparently was very impressive or a surprise or both. Anyway, there was something about that game that caught my interest. That same year, 1973, the Reds won their division and played the Mets in the playoffs. There was a big fight between Pete Rose of the Reds and Bud Harrelson of the Mets which almost overshadowed the entire series. I remember they had to close the bleachers in left field in Shea Stadium because fans were throwing things at Rose, who was a left fielder at the time. And later in the series, he hit a home run in Shea Stadium to win one of the games.

To make a long story short, I have been an ardent fan and follower of those two teams for the past 28 years. Between 1975 and 1982, I kept scorecards for every Reds game played, and updated the team's statistics after each game. My "streak" of consecutive games reached approximately 1,300 when at some point in the 1982 season with the Reds headed for 100 losses I decided that I needed to get a life.

Bengals.com

Likewise for the Bengals, I didn't miss a game for many years. Even through the decade of the 1990s when they set a record for the most losses by a pro football team in a decade, I remained a fan - although I reached a point at which if there was something better to do, I wouldn't plan my Sunday around watching or listening to the game of a team which was most certainly going to lose anyway.

I graduated from Beavercreek High School in 1980 and almost immediately went to work at the Beavercreek Daily News as a summer intern in the sports department. Already, for the previous three years, I had written weekly sports columns for the paper under the pseudonym "T.C. Thomas." The idea was that I did not want people to see my byline on the column and have some kid say to his parents, "Hey, that kid is in my class." I wanted to be judged as an adult.

University of Dayton

I attended college at the University of Dayton, just a few miles from my Beavercreek home, and majored in communications with a concentration in broadcasting. My goal was to be the next announcer of the Reds, having spent most of my teenage years with Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on Reds radio. But what four years in college taught me was that I was a better writer than a broadcaster.

So upon graduation in 1984, there was a reporting position open at the Beavercreek Daily News, which I was offered by my parents and accepted. I worked there as first a reporter, then sports editor, then assistant editor and finally editor until my parents sold their company in August 1986. The rest of my professional progression is available on my resume on this site.

In the past three years, I have been able to develop my interest in the Internet and the World Wide Web into some skills that I can put to use professionally and personally. This site is one example. Thanks to classes I took in HTML (the code used to write web pages), I have the ability to create web pages and put them on the Internet. My top achievement in web authoring was the former Suburban Newspapers of Dayton web site, which was an online archive of stories from the 13 news publications of the former SND company when it was owned by Amos Press of Sidney, Ohio. Under my direction, that site grew from a five-page shell which had been created by a consultant to over 3,000 pages and 450,000 page views per month. When Brown Publishing purchased Amos Press in November 2000, they replaced the site I had developed with a site that a private vendor constructed for them.

More to come ... Check back for updates. Thanks for visiting.

Last update: August 26, 2001

A tribute

Those of you who know me know that my parents were a great influence on how my career developed. My father, Chris, died Friday, March 8, 2002 at Trinity Community in Beavercreek, Ohio, at around 3 a.m. after a lengthy illness. Following is a story about his life. I thank the management and staff of the Beavercreek News-Current for publishing it in memory of the man who was the founder of that publication.

The man who ran Beavercreek’s newspaper for its first 26 years of existence died Friday, March 8, at Trinity Community following a lengthy illness.

Chris Mitsoff, 76, was editor and publisher of the Beavercreek News between 1960 and 1986. He and his wife, Ruth, who survives, purchased a four-page weekly advertising publication from a group of Beavercreek businessmen in 1960 and turned it into a community newspaper known as the Beavercreek News. Over the course of the Mitsoffs’ quarter-century of ownership, the paper grew from a weekly publication at its inception to a daily newspaper by the mid-1970s.

Upon creating the Beavercreek News, Mitsoff became editor, production manager and circulation manager. Ruth became bookkeeper and advertising sales representative, a role which she continues today with the newspaper under Brown Publishing’s ownership.

“I provided Beavercreek residents with a voice against what I call entrenched bureaucracy, because there was no method for the residents to express themselves,” Mitsoff said in a 1991 interview. “Surrounding newspapers only ran what officials said. I let it be known that this would be their (the residents’) paper.”

As the local newspaper’s editor, Mitsoff became actively involved with other community leaders in establishing various organizations in the community that are still in existence today.

Along with Dick Schroeder, Mitsoff helped start the Beavercreek Jaycees.

“They made me an associate member because I was older than what their membership allowed,” he explained in the 1991 interview.

He also remembered during that interview that there had been a couple of attempts made at starting a Beavercreek Chamber of Commerce, but those attempts were unsuccessful until many years after the Jaycees had been in existence. Then-Jaycee President Gene Bryant and Vice President Bob Fishback got behind the effort.

“Those two (Bryant and Fishback) got others involved and we did it,” Mitsoff said. Paul Dunnigan, Dr. Ray Barry, Lee Wimer, Tom Toy and Dr. David Virgallito were some of the organizers of the Beavercreek Chamber of Commerce.

Mitsoff and Toy formed the first membership committee for the newly formed chamber and signed up 105 members.

“We personally contacted all of the well-known and respected people in the community,” Mitsoff said.

Mitsoff, along with Al Bianco, also started the North Beavercreek Neighborhood Association. “At the time, there was only the Woodhaven Association in South Beavercreek,” Mitsoff said. “We thought there was a need for an association in North Beavercreek.”

Mitsoff was also a co-founder of the Greene Valley Recreation Club, along with Jim Stine, Al Baughman, Walter Sexauer, Charles Wood, Jack Clark and developers Claude Wright and Jim Whitlach.

As Beavercreek Township grew and incorporation became the topic of the day in the late 1970s, Mitsoff, through the newspaper, was able to fully cover the incorporation issue.

“I gave people who wanted the incorporation and those who didn’t the chance to tell their story about why they felt like they did,” he said. “The newspaper was as much responsible for making Beavercreek a city as anyone because of the coverage. Those who wanted it (incorporation) far outnumbered those who did not.”

Mitsoff grew up in Middletown and graduated from Middletown High School. With World War II underway during his high school years, Mitsoff had the opportunity to cover sports for his hometown paper, the Middletown Journal. He then served in the military with the Army of Occupation in Germany, assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment which guarded Allied headquarters in Frankfurt-am-Main., and later with the 82nd Airborne Division.

After his military discharge, Mitsoff worked as the associate editor of a monthly magazine called AMC Worldwide for the old Air Force Logistics Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He was there for about two years prior to starting his long-term association with the Beavercreek newspaper.

In 1986, he and Ruth sold their newspaper to Ohio Communications Corporation. In the early 1990s he worked briefly at the Beavercreek Current, a newspaper started by his children, Tom and Christine, and then for the Beavercreek News-Current, which was formed from the merger of the Current and the Beavercreek Daily News, then owned by Amos Press of Sidney, Ohio.

Late in life, Chris realized one of his life-long dreams when he became a published book author. His self-published book, "The Saga of the Kidney Stone Kid," is the story of his life-long struggle with kidney and heart ailments. The book became available in paperback in 2000 and online as an e-book in 2001.

Chris and Ruth were married 51 years and have lived in Beavercreek for 42 of them. They have two other children, Lee and David, who both also survive.