Blogwork

Remembering Tom Foust

Newspaper reporters need sources for stories; sources (sometimes) need us to get the story out.

And so we often try to rely on people who are consistent, available and reliable. Those are the people we go back to, again and again, because they have made themselves into an advocate, into an expert, or into a passionate debater, with any of those qualities making for a very useful source.

York City School Board member Tom Foust, who died at age 63 after a courageous fight with cancer, had all of those qualities.

Tom would have been the first person to say he had his share of enemies in the city, and that’s partly because he wasn’t afraid to say where he stood on a subject, always ready to back it up with his exhaustive research. As board President Samuel Beard put it at Wednesday’s meeting, soon after Tom had died, there was no use getting into a debate with Tom unless the person was ready to defend themselves.

There was no questioning Tom’s commitment. I saw him come to meeting after meeting even when he couldn’t talk because of treatment for cancer in his throat, even when he felt exhausted by it all.

Tom was moved to tears when Dollars for Scholars and several of Tom’s friends held a benefit dinner for him in April, basically a farewell send-off of Mr. Holland’s Opus proportions. I couldn’t make it that night - it was a surprise event so secret even most of the media weren’t aware of it in advance - but in talking to Tom afterward about it, you could tell there was an immense amount of pride there.

In the two-plus years I’ve been covering city schools as the education beat reporter, I’ve gone to more school board meetings than I care to say, and Tom did his part in making those meetings longer than I care to say, always wanting to add juusssssttt one more question.

But, as former board member Barbara Krier told me in remembering Tom’s qualities, it was good that Tom asked the extra question, because he made sure people didn’t get away with anything. He didn’t take a vote without knowing what he was getting into, she said.

And now the city school board will have to figure out how to proceed without one of the district’s biggest champions.

Tom’s funeral will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, July 3, at the Etzweiler Funeral Home, 1111 E. Market St., York, with burial at Greenmount Cemetery. A viewing will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, July 2, also at Etzweiler. Instead of flowers, his family is asking for donations to Dollars for Scholars or the York Chapter of the American Cancer Society; contact the funeral home for details.