|
Herald pressman Rhyne succumbs to melanoma
By Lynn Hotaling
 This newspaper has lost a veteran staff member to cancer.
Jeff Rhyne of Fisher Creek community, died Jan. 14 after a three-year battle with melanoma.
A printer who learned his trade during high school in Miami, Rhyne was a pressman at The Sylva Herald for 24 years before illness forced his early retirement. He was 64.
Rhyne, a native of Gaston County, graduated from Miami Tech in 1957. He worked for The Franklin Press in Miami, where he did much of the work on daily programs for Hialeah's dog tracks, for more than 17 years before moving to Sylva in 1977.
A chance meeting with Herald Publisher Jim Gray in a square-dance class led to Rhyne's job at the newspaper.
"He told me he'd been a printer in Miami, and I hired him as soon as I had an opening," Gray said. "He was a loyal company man for 24 years, and I'm sorry to lose him."
Gray had only praise for Rhyne and the contributions he made to The Herald for more than two decades.
"Jeff took pride in his work and wanted to please our customers," Gray said. "Not only that, he was somebody you could count on who got along well with his fellow employees.
"Jeff loved a good joke, and he loved to play jokes on people," Gray said.
Rhyne was first diagnosed with melanoma in January 2001. Specialists at Duke University Hospital treated him, and he underwent surgery almost immediately.
Throughout the course of his illness, he continued to work at the newspaper until September, 2003.
Rhyne's wife, Anne, said Monday that her husband was always glad he had made the choice to relocate to Sylva.
"He was happy when he got the job at The Herald," she said. "He loved printing and was good at it."
Anne Rhyne described their move to the mountains as a "leap of faith" that they took because of deteriorating conditions in their Miami neighborhood as their daughter, Susan, was poised to enter middle school.
"Drugs, shootings and robberies had moved in on us - there were riots at the elementary schools," Anne Rhyne said. "Jeff said, 'We've either got to move now or put bars on the windows and doors.'"
The interest in square dancing that led to his job at The Herald sent the Rhynes on an early fall trip to Australia and New Zealand in 2001.
"We were in New Zealand on Sept. 11," Anne Rhyne said Monday. "We didn't even hear about (the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon) until a day later, and we almost got marooned there."
During a Jan. 17 memorial service, the Rev. Paul Christy of Sylva First United Methodist Church chose 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, for a text and used the chapter's key words - faith, hope and love - to describe Jeff Rhyne's life.
Rhyne's faith that God would provide led him to move his family from Miami to Jackson County, Christy said, and it was hope that kept him going through the treatments, surgeries and bouts of chemotherapy.
And through it all, Rhyne showed his love for his family, church and community, Christy said.
Her husband battled to overcome the cancer, Anne Rhyne said.
"He fought it to the very last," she said. "He couldn't beat it, but he thought he could - he was sure he could.
"Coming back to work was his goal every day he lived," Anne Rhyne said.
"Jeff showed us all how to live with dignity and bear adversity with grace," said Steve Gray, Herald general manager.
"He came to work when most people would have stayed in bed, and he never complained," Steve Gray said. "We're all thankful Jeff was able to maintain a good quality of life for most of the three years since his melanoma was diagnosed, and we know he's at peace now."
|
