Remembering Jeff Maurer

   Monday was officially my first day back in a full-time role at the Bedford Gazette, but it became bittersweet as I heard late in the evening that we had all lost a friend in the local sports business - Jeff Maurer, the sports editor at the Somerset Daily American.
   Jeff passed away at the too young age of 39, and with myself being just a little older, it's another reminder of how much I know I take for granted every day without knowing what lies ahead.
   Jeff and I got to know each other through our mutual coverage of high school wrestling, mostly when it came to the postseason events. We would often swap team scores and individual results with each other to make sure we had it right for our respective newspapers. And we would at times be called upon by the other to cover a match, or a football game, or whatever else was needed. In 2009, Jeff asked me to help the Daily American with its first two days of coverage of the state wrestling tournament, which is where I first enjoyed talking with, and interviewing the late Nick Roberts.
   One of the things I thought most about Jeff was his quiet, unassuming demeanor. In that way, I'm cut from quite the same cloth. And in social media postings and such throughout the past few days, almost everyone has mentioned his quiet professional personality in their reflective thoughts.
   My last interaction with Jeff came in early February at the District 5 Duals. I was there covering the matches for the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. Jeff and I sat next to each other at the media table, again trading some scoring back and forth as we always had. One of his first comments to me was asking how my son was doing, and that always means so much to me coming from colleagues.
   Also in those postings I've seen, you can tell from people who know Jeff a lot better than I did that he truly cared about the people he worked with and was friends with.
   Jeff would have certainly been one of the fellow journalists I would have interacted with during this upcoming high school season. I'm saddened that I can't sit next to him at these events anymore, but I'm thankful that I knew him.