In Memory

Donald Pomeday



 
go to bottom 
  Post Comment

07/29/11 05:36 PM #1    

John McNamee

14 April 1944 - 9 Dec 1998 - died of complications from MS.

Coached girls basketball from a wheelchair.


07/29/11 08:53 PM #2    

John McNamee

 

Donald S. Pomeday             
               April 4, 1944 – Dec 9, 1998                           IN MEMORIAM
                                                                                    (2/28/02)
 

Just like so many have mentioned, it’s hard to look at the list of names of those that passed before us. Their names calling up memories of days gone by when we thought we would live forever. Remembering their faces bring before us pictures of their perpetual youth. I almost hesitate to point out one name, not wanting to diminish the significance of the others. But I am haunted by the image of one who was handsome, well liked, a good athlete and had the world by the tail with a promising future. He was a good husband, father and was on his way to being a newscaster with WISN-TV when he was stricken with MS. This awful disease left him in terrible pain and in a wheelchair at a very young age - but that didn’t stop him from being an inspiration for his son or to those around him. He coached the junior high girls and boy’s basketball teams and gave religious instructions at his area church. In spite of his tremendous handicap he continued to write stories, coach and above all never lost his faith in God. He was Don Pomeday.   But to me he will always be my cousin, Donny. And he is missed!

 Submitted by JoAnn Tennyck Pouliot
[Editors note: Don was a graduate of St. Edward’s grade school - class of 1958. In 1967 he married Carol Campbell, class of 1963 SCHS. Carol continues to reside in Belgium, Wisconsin and is one of the editors for The Ozaukee Press newspaper.]

09/17/14 10:31 PM #3    

John McNamee

 

Don Pomeday far right in his cousin's wedding Aug, 1965  - JoAnn Tennyck Pouliot.


06/29/21 03:11 PM #4    

John McNamee

Passion for television show pays off for convalescent By Geta Sharma-Jnn Journal Times RACINE When Donald Pomeday began soaking in MASH episodes while in the hospital in 1979, he had no idea his passion for the show could net him any cash. But last year, it did. Pomeday sold his MASH stash of trivia to Western Publishing Co. Inc., which used his questions for its Golden Trivia Game. M'AH edition. Pomeday, 40, who will get royalties from the game, is obviously hoping it sells a ton. Pomeday, the son of Don and Henrietta Pomeday of 3000 Webster St., got into MASH by accident, you might say. He got multiple sclerosis in late 1977, a disability that forced him to quit his job as a news director at WISN-TV in Milwaukee. During the years that followed, he was hospitalized, released and as the disease progressed, became more and more confined, first to his Racine home, then later to his home in Cedar Grove, just north of Port Washington. "I started collecting information on MASH in 1980 because I missed reporting and I liked writing," he said Thursday in a telephone interview. I thought I'd start following the characters and develop a family background on each of them." The dossier and trivia grew from there. One day, Pomeday said, he heard about Trivial Pursuit "before too many people knew about the game." And that got him working on his own MASH trivia game. Last year, he went to Western with his game and a MAS'H book. He hit the company at the right time. "We saw how hugely successful Selchow & Righter was being with Trivial Pursuit and we were deciding how to best exploit it," said Richard Gagne, director of product development at Western. "We didn't want to do a me-too game. So we were looking for a special niche." Enter Pomeday with ready-made questions and a game plan. "It was a happy accident," said Gagne, noting how Pomeday came to them at the right time. With Pomeday's ready-made questions. Western decided to go after the licensed trivia market. That means Western has exclusive rights to a M'A'S'H trivia game and three other trivia games. Western executives say their trivia games the others are on the National Football League. Disney, and baseball are different from other trivia games including Trivial Pursuit. How so? FirstT said s Hendrik Wolst. a marketing -manager. Western's games carry a moderate retail price: about $10. compared to many others which sell for $20 to $30 and more. Wolst also pointed to their exclusive areas. In addition, he said, the 1.296 questions in each game are interchangeable. That means, players can put all four editions together and play a new game of their own. And, he said. Western s game cards can also be used with Trivial Pursuit. Western's trivia games do not use a board. The game play, changed from Pomeday's, involve points for questions according to how difficult they are.

12 Aug 1984, Sun  •  Page 45

Top of Form

Quick, what is Hawkeye's favorite drink? Easy? Well, who gave Radar his final exam for his high school diploma? If you're a MASH buff and you think you know the answers to questions like those, you might enjoy a game recently introduced by Western Publishing Co. Inc. at 1220 Mound Ave. The game, called the Golden Trivia Game, M'A'S'H edition, retails for about $10. And it's one of four trivia games Western is introducing this year in an effort to get a chunk of the trivia-game market game makers see billowing in the wake of Sel-chow & Righter's big success with Trivial Pursuit. Western executives hope the four games zeroing in on the National Football League, Major League Baseball, Disney and M'A'S'H - will outsell about 40 other Trivial Pursuit copycat games and give it a better grip on the board game market. That market was at $201 million last year, according to industry figures compiled by The Toy Manufacturers of America, a trade group. Hendrik J. Wolst Jr., Western's marketing manager for games and puzzles, said the company soon will complete shipments of half a million trivia games. "We think the market will be able to take about a million units this year;" he said. This jumping on the trivia bandwagon is part of a gentle directional shift being choreographed by Joseph Marino, Western's president and chief executive ot.icer since 1982. In an interview last week, Marino agreed the company is leaning toward new, shorter-lived but hot licensing opportunities for growth while hanging on to its long-term staples coloring books, Golden books, checkers, playing cards and Bingo, among others. Marino's shift includes a more aggressive participation in the bidding wars for licenses, which give manufacturers exclusive use of trademarks and names. And it includes a flurry of products to cash in on fads of the moment books and games stemming from Stephen Spielberg's movie, "Gremlins"; Rainbow Brite books and Masters of the Universe books and games. "Our best-selling products still are the Golden books," Marino said. "But (the new licensed products) are a big part of our incremental business ..." Those new products, he said, are expected to help give Western about a $20-million boost in sales this year with no price increases. The surges in that increase, he said, are expected from Western's trivia games, its new Step Ahead books, and from printing Trivial Pursuit for Selchow & Righter. "We will have sales in excess of $270 million this year," he added. The Gremlins Story Book made it to the New York Times juvenile bestseller list last month. Western expects sales of 300,000 on that this year and 500,000 on its six Masters of the Universe books, said Barrie Simpson, marketing manager for books. Although the trivia games are big with the company. Western's bigger splash this year is its "Step Ahead" series, a grab at the educationally-oriented pre-school and elementary school-age market. Introduced in February, the Step Ahead line includes work books, stickers, flash cards, all based on "sounder educational principles," said Wolst. Said Marino: "There is a sharper focus for us on new business, a sort of marketing clarity." There also is a push toward hitherto untapped markets, such as hardcover children's books in the $6.95 range and books for pre-teen boys. For that age group. Western is coming out with four "James Budd" adventure books this fall and four more next spring. Marino said 60 to 70 percent of Western's products are produced under licensing agreements. Western has long had some major li- "f ' 1 . . - f r ii1. ;.;ruT(i,'l.s'-?' ' Paul Robartt. Journal Tlmat Western Publishing is introducing these trivia games this year censes. With Disney, for example. And when it was owned by Mattel Inc. (Mattel sold Western in February to a group headed by Richard A. Bernstein, a New York real estate investor). Western got several rights Mattel had secured, among them, Rainbow Brite. a Hallmark property. Marino said the company's return to the "licensing arena" is stronger now because he took licensing from Western's marketing divisions and put it "at the vice president level" where the company's top executives have more control. Take the trivia games. "We looked at the Trivial Pursuit game before it came out. Then, we found out the rights had been given to someone else," Ma rino said. " (But) ... we have to be in the trivia business. It's a fad." Marino suggested his managers think of something new in the line of trivia. "There was some resistance there because of the short-term nature (of trivia)," he said. "But we want to keep one foot on the shore ... We all know it's a one shot. Gremlins is not going to be around forever." Marino said Western expects its trivia games to do very well this year in a market where its competition includes games on Bible trivia and rock music trivia. Next year, Marino said, Western's trivia bubble will be smaller. The trivia bubble, however, may be more trivial this year than Western expects. A spokesman at Target stores' Minneapolis headquarters said in an interview last week that the baseball edition of the trivia game "is not doing well at all." MASH is doing okay, she said. Those two games were put on the market earlier this year; the Disney and NFL editions will be introduced this fall. Retail outlets, however, say 60 percent of their toy and game sales come later in the year. In the end. Western may do better than it expects with its "James Budd'' adventure stories. How come? Well, if you were 12, wouldn't you like to read about a junior high hunk who drives a hot red 1972 Firebird and solves crimes with the help of electronic gizmos? And his name sounds like James Bond too.

 

 

 

 


06/29/21 03:14 PM #5    

John McNamee

DONALD POMEDAY, a Racine native, has been named managing editor for the Eyewitness News staff of WISN - TV, Milwaukee. Prior to joining WISN-TV in November. 1972, Pomeday was news director for WAOW-TV in Wausau. Among citations he has won for his reporting are two United Press International reporting awards, one in 1969 for a five-part series on learning disabilities, and one in 1970 for a documentary, "Project Sanguine, Friend or Foe." Pomeday earned a B.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1968, where he majored in English and minored in radio and television. While in college, he directed news operations for the univcristy radio station, WRST-FM.


go to top 
  Post Comment