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Remembrances of Times outdoors editor Terry Tomalin

 
WaterTribe kayakers Jon Willis, left, and Terry Tomalin utilize a small sail taking advantage of a strong wind  while crossing Tampa Bay during the WaterTribe Cruising Challenge. [DOUGLAS CLIFFORD | Times (2001)]
WaterTribe kayakers Jon Willis, left, and Terry Tomalin utilize a small sail taking advantage of a strong wind while crossing Tampa Bay during the WaterTribe Cruising Challenge. [DOUGLAS CLIFFORD | Times (2001)]
Published May 20, 2016

"He not only earned the respect of readers, but the respect of old salts, the people who have it in their blood."

Joe Childs, former Times sports editor

"He's the only great outdoors writer I know. I don't know that there is another great outdoors writer out there. The only one left was Terry Tomalin."

William Darrell "Darry" Jackson, Bill Jackson's Shop for Adventure

"Terry had that sixth sense that all great reporters have, that bulldog instinct that something wasn't right."

Louis "Skip" Perez, executive editor of the Ledger (Lakeland) from 1981 to 2011

"He was sort of a hard-core old-fashioned newspaperman stuck in an outdoors writer's body."

Jack Sheppard, former Times sports editor

"One thing people would recognize from the Terry of 1986 in the Terry of 2016 was his intensity. He really brought his whole soul to every story."

Chuck Murphy, colleague at the Ledger and the Times

"He was young, he was inspiring and he was ready to take the world on, and he was going to tell you about it."

Dave Mistretta, charter boat captain and friend

"He would write these crazy things. People didn't believe the things we were doing. It was nutty. It was more than 90 percent of people could ever imagine doing. And we did them. Terry dreamed up a lot of these trips."

George Stovall, a St. Petersburg chiropractor who was a regular in Tomalin's stories