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J. Bennett DeLoach, Tampa Times' First Managing Editor, Dies

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By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 10, 2008

TAMPA - J. Bennett DeLoach, a former managing editor of The Tampa Times, died Saturday in his Canterbury Tower home. He was 97.

Survivors include his wife, Vennette, and daughter, Gail, said Leland Hawes, a friend of DeLoach's and a writer for The Tampa Tribune.

"He was one of the finest newspapermen I've ever encountered," Hawes said Sunday.

DeLoach was an Army intelligence officer in World War II and came to Tampa in 1946 as a bureau chief for The Associated Press, working from an office in the old Tampa Daily Times building on South Franklin Street.

When The Tampa Tribune bought The Tampa Daily Times in 1958, DeLoach was hired as the newspaper's first managing editor. He expanded the paper's local coverage to include MacDill Air Force Base, Sulphur Springs and East Hillsborough County, areas that were neglected at the time.

He assembled a staff of young, aggressive reporters who recalled DeLoach as "a demanding editor and a superb, gifted news writer" with a great sense of humor, according to a 2002 Tampa Tribune story by Hawes.

DeLoach retired in 1976, after several years as an editorial writer for The Tampa Tribune.

Relatives or a representative of Canterbury Tower could not be reached Sunday night for information about funeral services or cause of death.

Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 259-7920 or rreyes@tampatrib.com.

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