THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 5, 1994 TAG: 9407050086
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
James Rutledge Henderson III, a retired newspaper writer and editor, died Monday at his home. He was 69 and had coped for several years with cancer.
Survivors include his widow, Anna S. Henderson, a former mathematics supervisor with the Norfolk Public Schools.
``Jim Henderson is a dear friend and a great editor,'' said Guy Friddell, longtime columnist for The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, ``and such is his influence that he will always be in the present tense in our lives.''
Born in Charlotte, N.C., Henderson was a Navy veteran of World War II. He was a signalman in the Armed Guard, a relatively obscure outfit that provided gun crews and communications for merchant ships convoying war provisions overseas.
Henderson was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked for several newspapers in North Carolina before joining The Virginian-Pilot in February 1956. His last job at the Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star was as an assistant metropolitan editor, handling the work of daily columnists and several reporters.
During his Norfolk career, Henderson was a reporter covering courts, politics, City Hall and general assignments. He also was a daily columnist for three years in the 1960s and an editorial writer for five years in the 1970s.
As an editor of reporters' copy, a job he relished, Henderson was noted for his acerbic wit and sometimes tart tongue. He once described a reporter's story as ``drivel - but good drivel.''
``Jim was a splendid editor,'' said Robert Mason, editor of The Virginian-Pilot from 1962-78.
``He had that rare quality among newspaper people of understanding and practicing the courtesies of editing. When he applied his pencil to copy he did it gently. He deferred to the writer whenever possible, never injecting his own personality or ideas into it. He had considerable skill.''
Henderson also helped edit books by George Holbert Tucker, the Norfolk newspaperman, columnist and internationally recognized authority on Jane Austen. Henderson and a novelist friend once collaborated on a humorous paperback novel of Southern politics that, as he said, ``disappeared after one press run.''
``Jim Henderson was the single most knowledgeable person I've ever worked with,'' said Dave Addis, a Virginian-Pilot staff writer. ``I sat next to him for the better part of 10 years and hardly an hour would go by that I didn't learn something from him.''
``We reporters always enjoyed admiring Henderson,'' said Patrick K. Lackey, a staff writer. ``His wit was quick and perfect; his knowledge, deep and wide. He astounded us every day.''
Henderson was an avid amateur genealogist whose roots went back to 17th century Virginia. He was a life member of the Society of the Lees of Virginia.
Survivors include a sister, Elizabeth Henderson Wood of Melrose, Fla.; two sons, James Rutledge Henderson IV, a lawyer in Tazewell, Va., and Christopher J. Henderson, an Army helicopter pilot attached to the 283rd Medevac Unit in Fairbanks, Alaska.; three daughters, Lee Henderson Lewis, a hotel executive in Raleigh, N.C.; Meredith Henderson Heywood, a potter, of Whynot, N.C.; and Leslie Henderson Williams, a homemaker in Dallas; and eight grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 16, in the chapel of Cox Funeral Home in Ghent. Burial will be in Whynot, N.C.
Charitable contributions may be sent to St. Mary's Infant Home, 317 Chapel St., Norfolk, or The Nature Conservancy, PO Box 158, Nassawadox, Va. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``He astounded us every day,'' one reporter said of James Rutledge
Henderson III, who died Monday.
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB