(Courtesy of InDepthNH.org) Former Telegraph newsman John Harrigan peruses what's believed to be a copy of the Manchester Union Leader -- now the New Hampshire Union Leader -- during his tenure at the paper in the early to mid-1970s. Harrigan, who passed two weeks ago at age 75, began his news career at the then-Nashua Telegraph in 1968.

I was still wandering the hallways of the big, brick building at Elm and Lake streets that we Nashuans of baby boomer vintage knew as our high school when I happened to meet the new guy in Pop’s office – otherwise known as the Nashua Telegraph newsroom.

We may have met in that newsroom, a fairly dingy, smoke-filled and habitually cluttered space where men and women toiled day after day gathering news and putting it into words for our faithful readers.

Or our introduction may have come at a breaking-news scene, in between the photos the new guy was capturing with his bulky Mamiya to go with his story on whatever news was happening that day.

Today, more than 50 years after I shook hands with the new guy who introduced himself simply as “Harrigan” that day, I look back with great gratitude that I had the opportunity to get to know Harrigan, aka John Harrigan, aka J.D. Harrigan, whose medical challenges finally got the better of him after a long, valiant “Harrigan-style” battle that ended the day after Christmas at Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital.

The one little island of regret poking through that sea of gratitude? That Harrigan and I were never co-workers.

We might have been, had John decided to stick it out a little longer at the Telegraph. And those who were lucky enough to call him co-worker – an all-to-brief period between the summer of 1968 and the end of 1971 – undoubtedly felt a sense of loss when he announced he’d be leaving for Bill Loeb country.

I recall some of those co-workers verbalizing their disappointment, but I know for sure at least one of them was thoroughly bummed out over the fairly unexpected development.

Among Harrigan’s supervisors, in addition to managing editor John Stylianos, was the city editor, a then-20-year Telegraph veteran named Mike Shalhoup, whom I typically refer to as “Pop” when he comes up in one of these essays.

Pop had taken the young go-getter under his proverbial wing, tutoring him in the finer points of photography, story and column writing and darkroom techniques, which Harrigan soaked up like a sponge left sitting overnight in a tray of print developer.

I remember how much Pop appreciated mentoring such a conscientious, eager-to-learn young man, which, despite the nearly two-generation gap in age, led to a fast friendship that endured until Pop passed in 2003.

Meanwhile, retired newspaperman Greg Andruskevich, who would end up following a similar route as Harrigan – a few years at the Telegraph then joining the staff of what was then the Manchester Union Leader – wrote of his sadness upon learning that Harrigan had passed.

Greg, surely not one of those men of few words, said that “reading all of the tributes to our friend John Harrigan brings back many memories … “ of his time at the Telegraph.

He correctly recalled Harrigan as “a man of many tasks – crime reporter, darkroom technician, sports photographer … all under the guidance of Mike Shalhoup, while Don Anderson and I were the sports department … .”

Anderson followed a path similar to Harrigan’s: Telegraph reporter and editor in the mid- to late-60s then onto the Union Leader.

Andruskevich, meanwhile, included in his tribute post the oft-repeated tale that starred Harrigan – but it wasn’t about a photo, a story, darkroom work or covering spot news.

Harrigan, who Andruskevich described as “ultra-competitive from the words ‘play ball!'” was on an all-star baseball team comprised of former Nashua Dodgers players and a smattering of media and other celebrities that traveled around the region putting on exhibition games for fun and sometimes for fundraising.

Among the stops on the tour was the baseball field within the confines of the New Hampshire State Prison, where the all-stars played a team made up of inmates and prison guards. Their schedule featured all home games, for obvious reasons.

Harrigan, who was also the all-stars’ main pitcher, came to the plate and launched a high fly ball that, Andruskevich said, “everyone lost track of” after it disappeared near the smokestack in deep center field.

But one prison guard, perhaps one of those stationed in a lookout tower, said he saw the ball land in the smokestack.

“We all waited … finally a puff of smoke came out of the smokestack,” Andruskevich said. “The ball fell exactly in the center of the smokestack, and that puff of smoke turned out to be a home run, much to the dismay of the prisoners and guards who said that had never happened before.”

Andruskevich also recalled that Harrigan’s desk was in between those of staffers Marge DeLong and Marsha Clement.

I can recall stopping by Harrigan’s apartment, where he lived with his first wife, Belinda, and their first-born child, Karen, who followed her Dad into the newspaper business in the North Country.

During his Telegraph stint, Harrigan somehow got ahold of an old single-channel police and fire radio monitor, which was silent more often than it “talked.”

Between that and his knack for befriending police and other officials and cultivating relationships that yielded more than a few tips and “professional courtesies,” Harrigan almost instantly became the consummate, well-connected newsman.

That relationship-building paid off in spades one chilly mid-October Friday night back in 1971.

I remember it well. I was on the sidelines at Holman Stadium watching the Nashua-Portsmouth football game; Harrigan was on the opposite sideline, clicking photos with his Telegraph-issue twin-lens reflex box camera with the gaudy flash unit we used to call “the potato masher.”

Suddenly, the half-dozen or so detail officers assigned to the game began sprinting toward the exits. Harrigan was among them.

Their destination was Gingras Drive, a neighborhood off Lake Street, where a disgruntled resident was armed and sitting on his front steps demanding to see the police chief.

He wanted to see Chief Paul Tracy, but Tracy had just retired, and the suspect wasn’t satisfied with talking to Capt. Armand Roussel, who was the acting chief.

The suspect fired, struck Roussel three times, prompting police to return fire. He didn’t survive, but Roussel did – but a couple of weeks later an unexpected complication caused his death.

Harrigan’s story – he took photos as well – was the kind of reporting and writing that makes editors proud.

Years later, Harrigan would cover a far more horrific spate of violence for The News and Sentinel of Colebrook – and write a remarkable story that was also about The News and Sentinel.

“In August 1997, crazed killer Carl Drega fatally shot two police officers before invading Harriganís News and Sentinel building and gunning down his editor, Dennis Joos, as well as Harriganís longtime friend, local judge Vickie Bunnell. Drega went on to wound four other members of law enforcement before being killed by police in an exchange of gunfire,” InDepthNH.org reporter Paula Tracy wrote in a tribute story following Harrigan’s death.

“John had an inherent and unshakeable sense of place, a quality too seldom celebrated,” Jack Savage, president of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, said in Tracy’s story.

“As a writer, he storied the North Country so fervently that he became a symbol of its identity,” Savage added. “New Hampshire will miss him.”

Indeed we will – from here in one of the Granite State’s southernmost locales to one of its northernmost outposts.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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