Jay Gallagher

Gallagher, Jay DELMAR Jay Gallagher, an award-winning journalist who covered N.Y. state government for more than a quarter century and who tied together the inside baseball of politics with its impact on the economy in his book, "The Politics of Decline," died on Monday, May 24, 2010 from pancreatic cancer. He was 63. Gal-lagher was born in Beverly, Mass. and raised in Danvers, Mass. He earned a bachelor's degree at Colby College (Maine) and immediately followed his father's and uncle's footsteps into the newspaper world. He began as a reporter at the Waltham (Mass.) News Tribune before going to the Providence Journal and the Rochester (N.Y.) Times-Union. He spent eight years in Rochester before moving to the Gannett News Service New York Capitol Bureau in 1984. He became bureau chief in 1989, coordinating state coverage for Gannett's numerous New York newspapers for the next two decades. Throughout his career, Jay also channeled his mother's love for teaching, mentoring interns and younger reporters. Jay always took care to balance work with his personal life. He was a big sports fan, and also liked hiking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing with his family. He was a passionate and competitive tennis player, until a bad hip forced him to switch to golf. In high school, he played on the hockey and football teams; in college, hockey and track. And he always attended all the girls' athletic events, even doing a stint as co-head coach of a girls' soccer team with daughter Janice. Gallagher was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2009 and began chronicling his fight in a blog run by a number of N.Y. newspapers. With a sense of wit and grace, he took his readers through the ups and downs of chemotherapy, conflicting medical opinions and wrenching family decisions about what treatments to pursue. Gallagher was born on April 30, 1947. As a boy, he became a rabid follower of all Boston sports teams, especially the Red Sox. In his online memoirs, he wrote of his first visit to a ball game in 1953: "If I ever get to heaven, my arrival could be no sweeter than that moment I saw Fenway Park.'' He is survived by Emily Gallagher, his wife of almost 41 years; and two daughters, Janice Gallagher of Ithaca, N.Y., and Ellen Gallagher of Somerville, Mass. The memorial service will be held on Tuesday, June 1 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 262 State St. in Albany. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and the service will start at 7:30. Please check the family's blog (jaygallagher.blogspot.com) for further updates. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made to Friends of Five Rivers, 56 Game Farm Road, Delmar, NY 12054 or the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany Endowment Trust, 405 Washington Ave., Albany, NY 12206.