Delaware County Each day Instances Govt Editor Joseph Hart died Tuesday at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby after struggling a stroke. He was 60 years outdated.

Born in Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia on Feb. 2, 1962, he liked being a Groundhog Day child. 5 years in the past, he and his sister, Rosemary, traveled to Punxsutawney for the annual Groundhog Day celebration.

Hart was editor of each the newspapers at Cardinal O’Hara Excessive Faculty and West Chester College.

Forty years in the past, Linda DeMeglio was the managing editor of the Delaware County Each day Instances, when she employed him as an intern.

“I employed Joe Hart as an intern and he turned a reporter and a really fantastic reporter,” she mentioned. “When the MOVE trials have been occurring and the Philadelphia papers have been on strike, Joe Hart carried that story for everybody within the area. He was a fantastic reporter and have become a fantastic editor.”

“From the second Joe entered the newsroom as an intern reporter, he was a drive to be reckoned with,” mentioned  Patti Mengers, who was a Each day Instances employees author for almost 41 years. “At barely 20 years outdated, he understood the tasks and the facility of the press, and he liked each second of being a part of it. However what I’ll miss most about him is his wit and kindness.”

“He simply rose from the ranks,” mentioned retired Each day Instances reporter Marlene DiGiacomo. “He was a younger child when he got here to work on the Each day Instances.”

Retired Each day Instances Govt Editor Philip Heron recalled Hart’s stellar work, together with the MOVE proceedings.

“Everybody adopted the tales on these hearings,” Heron mentioned. “He at all times knocked it out of park.”

Heron additionally recalled Hart becoming a member of the newspaper’s employees as an intern whereas nonetheless attending faculty at West Chester College.

“A part of the time, he was in Harrisburg and labored with Hal Ellis,” he mentioned of the time when the Each day Instances had a Harrisburg bureau.

Hart returned to the Delaware County places of work, then within the Primos part of Higher Darby, and have become the lead county and politics reporter, successful a mess of awards for his work.

“He liked journalism,” recalled former Each day Instances Options Editor Trish Cofiell. “However what I keep in mind is when he wrote his column on the courthouse – the political underpinnings of the courthouse – and he was a pit bull on that. He did some traditional tales there. He actually knew find out how to dig into issues. It’s simply too unhappy.”

His love for the Each day Instances and the newspaper enterprise was evident as he stored his authentic 1980’s press move, the place he’s seen in a black-and-white profile {photograph}, sporting a recent permed coiffure.

“The institutional information Joe had of the county, you possibly can’t substitute that,” Heron mentioned. “He was the strolling encyclopedia of Delco politics.”

About 25 years in the past, Hart was requested to grow to be one of many newspaper’s two metropolis editors. Roughly 5 years later, he was promoted to Affiliate Editor.

“I don’t suppose I noticed him lose his mood in on a regular basis I labored there and that was unusual for an editor,” mentioned DiGiacomo, one other longtime former Each day Instances reporter. “He was simply very skilled in coping with his staff. I might name on the strangest occasions and he was at all times able to take the story or deal with something had. He at all times had a joke for you or one thing if you happen to have been doing a narrative. He was only a good editor and particular person.”

Longtime Each day Instances columnist Gil Spencer Jr. mentioned Hart was aptly named, giving all he needed to the enterprise.

“There have been a ton of issues we disagreed about politically – and we’d go face to face at editorial board endorsements and that type of factor – however he was a principled man,” mentioned Spencer. “He was an actual newspaper man and he liked the enterprise, and in that regard he jogged my memory of my dad (newspaper editor Gil Spencer Sr.). He lived and breathed it, and he took it significantly, and he will likely be missed, I’ve little doubt, by his employees and the folks of Delaware County.”

Hart turned Govt Editor of the paper after Heron retired in April 2020.

“Joe’s information judgement was at all times on the cash,” Heron mentioned. “You couple that along with his information of Delaware County. He was simply indispensable.”

Former Each day Instances police reporter Rose Quinn shared her ideas on working with Hart.

“I look again and I really feel like Joe and I grew up within the newsroom,” she mentioned. “When it got here to pounding out a narrative on deadline, he was the king. It was superior to observe. I admired him as a colleague. Much more, I liked him as my buddy.”

Hart additionally was a doting uncle and great-uncle, a world traveler and a collector of celeb autographs.

He had an inexhaustible information of Darkish Shadows and the Titanic.

Hart is survived by two sisters, Jeanne M. Hart Schatzman and Rosemary Hart; his niece, Megan Schatzman; his nephew, Thomas Schatzman; his grandnieces, Lily Rose and Emily Grace; and two kitties he rescued, Gavin and Kara.

Preparations are pending.