Hardesty: So long and save me a seat

I never got to say goodbye to my friend and colleague, Chuck Condley.

Chuck died at age 73 on Nov. 5, 2018, a year and a half after my position as assistant sports editor at the Record-Courier had been eliminated. Chuck, a graduate of Kent Roosevelt High School and Kent State, worked at the R-C as a sports writer for the better part of 50 years, and he and I worked together my entire time there from 1994 to 2017. Night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year, Chuck was there in his familiar seat in the Sports Department, first in the R-C‘s Ravenna office and then in the “new” Kent building. He was a constant, someone you could count on to be there, do his job right, serve as a wealth of information due to his longevity at the paper and his standing in the community, and, most of all, be a friend (and a comedian — more on that in a moment).