Albert 'Flip' De Luca

By Brad Jenkins

YOU MAY HAVE known him as Albert De Luca of Harrisonburg. It's the name he used on his frequent letters to this newspaper's editorial page. Any time I saw that name here, I knew I could expect something incisive and thoughtful.

That's because I knew the man behind those letters. And he never went by Albert. To his friends and colleagues, he was "Flip"; to the journalism students he taught at James Madison University, it was "Mr. De Luca" or "Mr. D."

Last week, those of who knew and respected Flip were shocked to hear of his death at age 57. It has been heartening, though, to remember how wide Flip's influence has been on journalism. As a champion of student journalism, Flip molded scores of men and women who now work in media ranging fromThe Washington Post and other major outlets to small community weeklies.

Getting through one of Mr. De Luca's classes was not easy. He was tough, insisting that all the questions be answered, all the numbers add up and all the grammar be used properly. He did it in the best way he could: by showing us how. When I was his student in the mid 1990s, Mr. De Luca announced in class one day that we'd be going to the campus commons to cover then-Gov. Jim Gilmore's appearance on campus.

Notebooks and pens in hand, we took notes on what Gilmore said. Then, as Gilmore worked the crowd, Mr. De Luca approached him. I don't remember the questions he asked Gilmore, but I remember they were tough, and he kept on pressing. It was Flip De Luca at his finest: teaching his students by example.

Mr. D. didn't stop in the classroom. He spent many hours each week in the basement offices of the campus newspaper, The Breeze, offering his advice while always allowing the students to make the decisions. We respected his journalistic compass so much, though, that we rarely strayed from his opinion.

Earlier this week, we set up a Web site in honor of our friend and mentor, and the comments have been strikingly similar. As I read them I realized that what Flip gave to me was multiplied countless times during his tenure at JMU, which began in 1979 and lasted until 2005.

Drew Wilson, a former Breeze editor spoke for many when he wrote, "In my four years at JMU, I don't think I had a professor who was more critical than Mr. De Luca. But that is what made him such a great teacher. No lead couldn't be written better and no story couldn't be edited tighter. He made you strive harder. Most importantly, he made you WANT to strive harder. During my years at The Breeze, no reward was greater than to get a compliment from Mr. De Luca. If he told you ‘good job,' then you knew you had done something special."

This was true for me. While I was a reporter and editor at this newspaper, De Luca invited me back to JMU to talk about life in the "real world" of daily journalism. After several of these class visits, he told me he thought I was good in front of a classroom. I wasn't convinced, but he encouraged me to consider teaching a writing class as an adjunct instructor. I soon did, and I discovered the thrill that he must have felt in working with student journalists.

Now, as general manager of The Breeze, where De Luca helped formed me as a reporter, I work with students to do the same thing. I only hope some of his abilities rubbed off on me.

De Luca's passion for student achievement took him beyond JMU, too. Flip spent more than 15 years planning conferences for College Media Advisers and the Associated Collegiate Press, making him a well-known adviser throughout the country. In 1995, he received CMA's highest honor.

For Flip, though, his highest honor was turning college students into successful reporters and editors. To me, that meant still receiving e-mails and calls from Flip with critiques and ideas during my days as a reporter and editor at the Daily News-Record. They were notes and calls I never grew weary receiving, and ones that I will now miss.

Jenkins is general manager of The Breeze, the student newspaper at James Madison University, where he studied journalism. He is a former reporter and editor at the Daily News-Record.