Legendary sportswriter Mickey Furfari passed away July 11, when I posted an article on this blog about him.

Fairmont Times Editor John Veasey was kind enough to mail me a clipping of my final tribute to Mickey in the newspaper’s Letters to the Editor. It arrived today.

Most who read this blog know that Mickey and I go back to the early 1950s, when I was in the WVU School of Journalism and Mickey was Morgantown Dominion News sports editor longer than most of readers had been alive.

Mickey and I maintained contact over more than six decades, via emails and phone calls every two or three weeks, until his final medical episode.

Mickey was 92 when he began writing for St. Peter inside the Pearly Gates.

He was my first non-faculty mentor during my WVU School of Journalism days.

Mickey was so respected by former WVU athletic stars that they always returned his phone calls for interviews, most notably Jerry West, the best basketball player in Mountainer history.

I understand how they felt. There are few people in my newspaper career that I respect as much as I did – and do – Mickey.

I just couldn’t let him leave us without a final, farewell salute to a fallen World War II soldier, who loved WVU so much that he bled blue and gold for his alma mater.

As I do.

See you in the Great Hall of Fame in the Sky some day, Mickey.