Adventures With Tom Renner
By James Donahue
My rival at the South Haven Tribune, Jack Stroud, took a job with the Pontiac Press. He was replaced by Tim Renner, a tall, blond-haired young reporter who had as much energy to burn as I did in those days. He turned out to be an outstanding reporter and we developed a friendly rivalry.
Tom and I both joined the Fire Department at about the same time. After fighting fire and working shoulder to shoulder on a few extra hot blazes, our friendship grew even deeper. I have a fond memory of being at his house one hot summer day and his wife introducing me to my first bottle of the newly released Mountain Dew soft drink. Of all the soft drinks sold on the market, I still like that one more than any others.
There were two very frightening events that occurred where Tom and I were actively involved in dealing with them. The first was a sweep of several destructive tornadoes that tore through Allegan and Van Buren Counties that we worked together to cover as news reporters. The other was a scary night of racial rioting when a mob of blacks attempted to bring the trouble from Detroit and Grand Rapids to our town.
On the night of the tornadoes, Tom and I were at the Fire Hall waiting for something to happen. It had been one of those hot, sultry days that often precede severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in Michigan, and the area was under a tornado alert. Tom had acquired a portable police radio for his car. Our plan was to use the radio to follow the path of any tornado if one struck in our area. It was early in the evening when the storm hit, and within minutes we were getting reports that a tornado had touched down north of us in Allegan County. We jumped in the car and drove to the scene. With the radio on, I kept mapping the path of the twister and the strange path it took into Van Buren County.
We found houses that were severely damaged by the tornado, uprooted trees, and various other structures like barns and storage buildings flattened. We got pictures, talked to people who survived the storm, and worked deep into the night before we were sure we had the entire area affected by that storm covered. Then we split up. I drove my pictures to Benton Harbor and went up into the office to write my story. That morning I found out that my editor had been frantically trying to contact me and assign me to do what I was already doing. He sent another reporter and a photographer out to cover the tornado when he couldn’t reach me. I think Lindenfelt gave me a tongue lashing for not reporting in and advising him that I was on the story. I had been so used to going to fires and other disasters as a fire fighter and then turning my stories in the next day, the thought of looking for a telephone and calling somebody in Benton Harbor had not crossed my mind. I assumed they would know that I was on the job. In the end, after my story was filed and the pictures developed Bert had to say that I had it all well covered. Unfortunately, I had to share the story and the by-line.
The Detroit race riot of 1967 was sparked by a raid by a vice squad on an after-hours drinking club in a predominately black neighborhood and the arrests of over 80 people involved in a party for returning Vietnam veterans. The event stirred anger in the streets on a warm summer night.
Suddenly people were kicking out store windows, looting and starting fires. The rioting spread through the city and got so bad the National Guard and the 82nd airborne were brought in to try to achieve order. But the violence escalated, lasting for five long days and spreading to other cities in Michigan. Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo were hit by riots. The authorities in South Haven received threatening phone calls that our community was next.
The city’s police department was not equipped to patrol the town to head off an assault by the black community, which existed in parts of South Haven and was heavily clustered in the neighboring town of Snover located a mile or two to the East. Chief Buelow found that all of the extra troopers from the local Michigan State Police Post, and the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Department had been summoned to assist police in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Thus the volunteer fire fighters were put on patrol.
Renner and I pared off that night. If I remember correctly, we were even given a loaded shotgun to carry with us. We also had Renner’s portable police radio, which kept us informed on events throughout the night.
We started our patrol at dusk and continued driving around town until almost dawn the next morning. It was a strange sensation, playing the role of police officers, driving the dark streets of our town and looking for signs of anything strange occurring in the various neighborhoods. The word had spread that South Haven was going to be attacked and people stayed in their homes. Most of the lights were off. There was almost nobody to be seen on the streets. The only other vehicles were the cars and pickups driven by the other fire fighters, plus the city police cars.
Suddenly, sometime before midnight, there was an alarm that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the front window of a home in one of the older parts of town. We rushed to the scene. A fire truck arrived at about the same time. There was a fire but it was snuffed out before it caused extensive damage. A search of the area produced no suspects. Was it an act by pranksters or was it really a racial attack? The occupants of the house were not representatives of city government. Why were they picked?
In the end, that one event was all that happened during the week of the Detroit riots. Our patrol only occurred that one night. It was the result of a single malicious telephone call to either the police department or the mayor at a time when the events occurring in Detroit were so extreme we were all wondering if it wasn’t going to be the start of a civil war throughout America.
I looked Renner up on line as I was writing this material. It seems that he remained at Hope College where he became associate vice president of community and public relations. He also served as assistant fire chief at South Haven and was elected for a while on the city council.
By James Donahue
My rival at the South Haven Tribune, Jack Stroud, took a job with the Pontiac Press. He was replaced by Tim Renner, a tall, blond-haired young reporter who had as much energy to burn as I did in those days. He turned out to be an outstanding reporter and we developed a friendly rivalry.
Tom and I both joined the Fire Department at about the same time. After fighting fire and working shoulder to shoulder on a few extra hot blazes, our friendship grew even deeper. I have a fond memory of being at his house one hot summer day and his wife introducing me to my first bottle of the newly released Mountain Dew soft drink. Of all the soft drinks sold on the market, I still like that one more than any others.
There were two very frightening events that occurred where Tom and I were actively involved in dealing with them. The first was a sweep of several destructive tornadoes that tore through Allegan and Van Buren Counties that we worked together to cover as news reporters. The other was a scary night of racial rioting when a mob of blacks attempted to bring the trouble from Detroit and Grand Rapids to our town.
On the night of the tornadoes, Tom and I were at the Fire Hall waiting for something to happen. It had been one of those hot, sultry days that often precede severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in Michigan, and the area was under a tornado alert. Tom had acquired a portable police radio for his car. Our plan was to use the radio to follow the path of any tornado if one struck in our area. It was early in the evening when the storm hit, and within minutes we were getting reports that a tornado had touched down north of us in Allegan County. We jumped in the car and drove to the scene. With the radio on, I kept mapping the path of the twister and the strange path it took into Van Buren County.
We found houses that were severely damaged by the tornado, uprooted trees, and various other structures like barns and storage buildings flattened. We got pictures, talked to people who survived the storm, and worked deep into the night before we were sure we had the entire area affected by that storm covered. Then we split up. I drove my pictures to Benton Harbor and went up into the office to write my story. That morning I found out that my editor had been frantically trying to contact me and assign me to do what I was already doing. He sent another reporter and a photographer out to cover the tornado when he couldn’t reach me. I think Lindenfelt gave me a tongue lashing for not reporting in and advising him that I was on the story. I had been so used to going to fires and other disasters as a fire fighter and then turning my stories in the next day, the thought of looking for a telephone and calling somebody in Benton Harbor had not crossed my mind. I assumed they would know that I was on the job. In the end, after my story was filed and the pictures developed Bert had to say that I had it all well covered. Unfortunately, I had to share the story and the by-line.
The Detroit race riot of 1967 was sparked by a raid by a vice squad on an after-hours drinking club in a predominately black neighborhood and the arrests of over 80 people involved in a party for returning Vietnam veterans. The event stirred anger in the streets on a warm summer night.
Suddenly people were kicking out store windows, looting and starting fires. The rioting spread through the city and got so bad the National Guard and the 82nd airborne were brought in to try to achieve order. But the violence escalated, lasting for five long days and spreading to other cities in Michigan. Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo were hit by riots. The authorities in South Haven received threatening phone calls that our community was next.
The city’s police department was not equipped to patrol the town to head off an assault by the black community, which existed in parts of South Haven and was heavily clustered in the neighboring town of Snover located a mile or two to the East. Chief Buelow found that all of the extra troopers from the local Michigan State Police Post, and the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Department had been summoned to assist police in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Thus the volunteer fire fighters were put on patrol.
Renner and I pared off that night. If I remember correctly, we were even given a loaded shotgun to carry with us. We also had Renner’s portable police radio, which kept us informed on events throughout the night.
We started our patrol at dusk and continued driving around town until almost dawn the next morning. It was a strange sensation, playing the role of police officers, driving the dark streets of our town and looking for signs of anything strange occurring in the various neighborhoods. The word had spread that South Haven was going to be attacked and people stayed in their homes. Most of the lights were off. There was almost nobody to be seen on the streets. The only other vehicles were the cars and pickups driven by the other fire fighters, plus the city police cars.
Suddenly, sometime before midnight, there was an alarm that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the front window of a home in one of the older parts of town. We rushed to the scene. A fire truck arrived at about the same time. There was a fire but it was snuffed out before it caused extensive damage. A search of the area produced no suspects. Was it an act by pranksters or was it really a racial attack? The occupants of the house were not representatives of city government. Why were they picked?
In the end, that one event was all that happened during the week of the Detroit riots. Our patrol only occurred that one night. It was the result of a single malicious telephone call to either the police department or the mayor at a time when the events occurring in Detroit were so extreme we were all wondering if it wasn’t going to be the start of a civil war throughout America.
I looked Renner up on line as I was writing this material. It seems that he remained at Hope College where he became associate vice president of community and public relations. He also served as assistant fire chief at South Haven and was elected for a while on the city council.