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Tom Schmidt, 78, longtime Daily News journalist

He was known as a dogged reporter and a careful editor.

Tom Schmidt
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YOU COULDN'T mistake that Texas drawl.

Even though it faded a bit after many years in the Philadelphia area, which has its own distinctive accents, those smooth Texas tones were unmistakably Tom Schmidt's.

Tom was a newspaperman of the old school - tough, creative, dedicated, the kind of reporter who didn't let much get in his way when he was chasing a story.

He was also an editor who specialized in guiding young reporters along the right way to pursue a story, then correcting and polishing their prose after they turned it in.

When he came to the Philadelphia area in the 1960s, Tom brought with him not only the accents but also the sensibilities of his native Texas Hill Country, both of which remained among his defining characteristics.

Thomas Mack Schmidt died April 3 of complications of a number of illnesses. He was 78 and lived in Drexel Hill.

"Tom was really special, with a great laugh and a big heart," said retired Daily News reporter Kitty Caparella. "He had a great sense of humor, even when he was editing copy - in the way he asked questions. He was especially kind to young reporters just getting into the business."

Tom's generosity with friends and colleagues was legendary. "I was especially grateful decades ago when he co-signed a loan for me with the credit union," Caparella said. "When I look back, I wonder how many people would be willing to do that for a co-worker, no questions asked."

"Tom was an outstanding newsman," said former Daily News assistant city editor Yvonne Dennis, now an editor at the Wall Street Journal. "He was always reading a smart book. Though I only worked with him when he was an editor, Tom, it seemed to me, was one of those great former reporters who reluctantly became an in-office editor because reporting before the Internet and email was a job best done hustling out on the street by the young.

"I learned how to manage reporters, guide them and respect how they do their jobs by watching Tom. Tom was loud and he was blunt, but he was reasonable and patient and an excellent line editor."

"Tom Schmidt was a great general-assignment reporter, a fellow who could cover just about every assignment handed out by the city editor," said retired Daily News reporter Frank Dougherty.

"One night, for example, he would work the city desk, directing the reporters at the old 619 press room in the Police Administration Building. The following night, say, if a police reporter called off sick, Tom would drive to the police press room and cover the cops-and-robbers beat.

"He was thorough in his reporting, sharp and accurate, a good, solid deadline writer and one of the nicest guys in the business."

Tom's boyhood home was the town of Mason, Texas, not far from the state capital of Austin.

"When I was in the Army in 1965, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, I was a passenger in a small airplane flying over central Texas when the pilot encountered some mechanical problems," Dougherty recalled. "We made an emergency landing at Mason Airport, a rural airfield with a grass landing strip, populated by jackrabbits.

"When I first met Tom and learned he was from Mason, we shared stories about life in the Texas Hill Country."

Dougherty said that Tom was also a gourmet cook.

"He once gave me a recipe for Chinese spareribs that called for hanging the spareribs vertically inside the oven to get the proper crispness," Dougherty said.

Tom was a devoted jazz fan, and when working on the city desk he would turn down the volume of the police radios and KYW's all-news broadcasts so he could listen to FM jazz stations.

At the same time, Tom studied the piano for years and favored classical music.

After he arrived at the Daily News in 1968, Tom spent many years as a reporter covering crime, the courts, City Hall and politics. He even wrote theater and restaurant reviews.

"He had to quit the restaurant reviews because our children wouldn't cooperate," said his wife, the former Roberta Dunlap. "All they wanted were hamburgers."

Tom was running the night city desk in August 1975 when the disastrous Gulf Oil refinery fire broke out, eventually going to 11 alarms. Eight firefighters died and 14 others were injured.

Gloria Campisi, a retired Daily News reporter, recalled that she was the only reporter when the fire broke out. She covered the blaze alone and phoned notes to Tom, who wrote the first-edition stories.

"Tom handled the whole thing," she said. "He pulled everything together. He was capable at every level of the newspaper business. He was down-to-earth, just an old-fashioned newspaperman."

Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky recalled that in the '70s, Tom had to deal with editors who were expert nitpickers, guys who landed on the nits with extreme prejudice.

Bykofsky said that one time an editor rushed up to Tom on the city desk brandishing a newspaper with one of those nits, demanding to know, "How did this happen?"

"Tom replied in his soft Texan drawl, 'I cain't understand it, I just cain't understand it.'

"It was not an admission, it was not a denial, it didn't point at anyone else, it was just perfect," Bykofsky said. "Any time he was confronted, that was his reply.

"I never knew whether Tom was being clever or conniving or what. I just knew that he was one of the great Daily News characters, without even trying to be."

Tom was born in Mason, Texas, to Dorothy and Clayton Schmidt. The family has a photo of him with his eighth-grade class, all of about a dozen students grinning at the camera.

He graduated from Texas Tech University in Lubbock and worked for a newspaper in Lubbock for a time. A college teacher told Tom and some other students about opportunities in Delaware County, Pa., so he took a job as a reporter at the Delaware County Daily Times, then in Chester. He eventually rose to city editor, but a labor dispute in 1968 caused the entire news staff to walk out.

Tom then came to work for the Daily News. He retired in 2008.

Tom's wife, Roberta, was a social worker with the Greater Chester Movement, an anti-poverty program centered in Chester, when she met Tom.

Both were driving green Cougars and parking on the streets, Roberta to go to work and Tom as a reporter covering the program. Roberta related that she diligently put coins in the parking meter but kept getting tickets anyway. Finally, someone told her that she was putting coins in the wrong meter for the wrong green Cougar. It was Tom's meter.

Their relationship advanced from there, and they were married in April 1967.

When their son Jonathan went to Peru on a Fulbright Fellowship, Tom visited him there. He also enjoyed traveling to Mexico and other destinations, often returning to Texas to visit friends and family.

In later years, Tom enjoyed going to restaurants in Delaware County. He became a popular figure among the owners and waitresses, who liked to flirt with him. Tom ate up the attention.

A few years ago, Roberta bought Tom a used grand piano. He was thrilled. He was still taking lessons and, when he had trouble traveling to his teachers, they came to him.

Tom loved cats, and his idea of relaxation was to sit on the couch with a cat in his lap and chill out.

Tom was devastated by the 2010 death of son Jonathan, who was a rising star in a Philadelphia law firm and a rising political figure. He died of cancer at age 36. He and his wife, Andrea, a granddaughter of former vice president and presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, had a son, Thaddeus.

Tom also is survived by a daughter, Marisa "Nikki" Bielavitz; and a sister, Christy Wright.

Tom requested that no funeral be held.