MANSFIELD — A Mansfield legend joined the ages on Saturday morning and I miss him already.

Ron Simon, an award-winning columnist at the News Journal and an icon in north central Ohio, a friend to all veterans, died after a long period of declining health at Ashland’s Good Shepherd Nursing Home.

I am proud to say Ron was my friend since the day I moved to Mansfield in 1990. I took pleasure in sharing his military story this past July 4. He had authored the stories of so many others, I never knew his before that day.

One of my first assignments at the News Journal in the summer of 1990 was to shadow Ron as he went about his daily business of visiting sources, responding to breaking news, collecting tips and keeping his ear to the ground. That very week there was an attempted robbery of a Brinks truck in downtown Mansfield. An innocent bystander was shot in the scuffle.

Ron was on the scene, and identified the person instantly. He simply knew the man by being Ron Simon, man about town who noticed and filed things so many others simply dismissed.

Ron was a Shelby product who did school the hard way. He left Shelby High School as a teenager in 1959 to join the military. He earned his GED in the service, was stationed in Saigon and Okinowa among other stops, then attended Ohio State upon his return thanks to the GI Bill.

He received training as a writer while in the Army, and was forever grateful for it. He came back from the military during the Vietnam War era, admittedly jaded by the experience of the 1960s.

Ron loved to tell stories of driving a taxi in Columbus as he worked his way through college. Cab drivers know the best stories in every city, he said.

I never doubted that for a second, and little else Ron shared among his pearls of wisdom.

He was an everyman who never considered himself anyone special — although he truly was. Ron immediately had the respect of virtually every military person he ever interviewed, and that had to be hundreds, probably more, in a writing career that spanned nearly a half-century.

He was an enormous Cleveland Indians fan, and when I received the call that he passed away Saturday morning, I thought Ron would immediately grasp the irony. His Tribe took a 2-1 World Series lead over the Cubs on Friday night, and sit just two games away from a championship he would’ve relished like no other.

Ron would be bubbling about the Indians. He loved to talk, but like any good reporter he could also listen. He enjoyed jumping into the fray no matter the topic, local history, Buckeyes, Browns, Tribe, politics, even the weather. The man was a walking encyclopedia who never took himself too seriously.

I worked with him for more than 20 years and his combat with the phone system, computers and technology was a source of high comedy among his colleagues. Ron knew it, and it never bothered him in the least. At one point, he was given a wood placard with a phone attached that had an arrow jutting through the receiver — and that was before the internet invaded his workplace, presenting him with an entirely new set of foreign circumstances.

Through it all, Ron persevered and marched forward. Well after many reporters his age left the business, he continued to bang out a weekly column and an incredibly popular veteran feature. Both pieces were among the best-read items the News Journal published, and reader feedback was consistent.

As a columnist Ron was an award-winner who had become the voice of the community, offering an older, wiser, experienced take on north central Ohio that I regularly looked forward to reading. And I wasn’t alone.

It’s been less than an hour since I received the call of Ron’s passing, and I miss him greatly already. I know I always will.

The toughest part is so will Mansfield.