OBITUARY OF JOHN GARCIA
May 7, 2021
NAHJ Remembers Longtime Journalist and NAHJ Student Project Mentor John Garcia
(Washington, D.C.) – John Garcia, longtime journalist and former communications director of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a national civil rights organization, passed away unexpectedly Monday, February 15, 2021 at his home in Quincy, Florida, near Tallahassee. He was 63.
Mr. Garcia was a former digital news director of WNBC.com in New York and had taught and mentored student journalists as a digital journalism professor at New York University and through his work with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
“He was energetic, lively, opinionated and a real New Yorker with Puerto Rican flair. He has gone from us much too early,” said Juan Cartagena, President and General Consul of LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
“John Garcia brought me into the NAHJ as a student for the Latino Reporter. He was so passionate about helping students. It was my first experience interacting with journalism professionals and he made me feel that there was a place for me in this competitive field. It was the jumpstart I needed. I’m forever grateful to him,” Jodi Hernandez, a NBC Bay Area reporter, said on Facebook.
“He was a wonderful professor, boss and mentor,” Freddie Mejia, who met Garcia as a student at NYU, said on Facebook.
Mr. Garcia was born in Manhattan and often told funny stories about growing up in the Alfred E. Smith Houses on the Lower East Side. As a boy, he had a clear view of the Brooklyn Bridge from the family’s apartment and observed the construction of One Police Plaza, the mammoth NYPD police headquarters, across the street. He attended elementary school on the Lower East Side and graduated from Aviation High School in Queens, which piqued his interest in flying. As an adult, he took flying lessons, got his pilot’s license and flew solo flights on several occasions.
His family moved to South Florida in the late 1970s and Mr. Garcia soon followed. His first reporting job was at The Miami Herald. He worked in the paper’s Neighbors bureaus, where he covered news and wrote a sports column. A sportsman himself, he won several National Racquetball Championships during that time.
He rode around Miami on a motorcycle and became known at the Herald as an energetic go-getter. On one occasion while riding his motorcycle, several police cruisers flew by him in the opposite direction, so he turned his motorcycle around and followed them. He got the story of a burglar caught in the act. And the Herald photographer got a picture of the cops arresting the burglar – and John looking on in the background.
In 1986 he married journalist Evelyn Hernández and in 1987 the couple moved to New York City. They were married for 18 years and had two daughters.
Mr. Garcia worked at the Herald Statesman, a Gannett Newspaper in Westchester County, Vista Magazine and the New York Daily News. For several years in the 1990s he was a Journalism professor at New York University. During that time, Mr. Garcia earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Hunter College-CUNY.
In the late 1990s he became Digital News Director at WNBC.com in New York and was involved in the coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
From 2008 through 2018, Mr. Garcia was Director of Communications and Community Engagement at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a national civil rights organization based in New York that focuses on advocacy issues affecting the Latino community.
Mr. Garcia joined the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in 1988, served on the Board of Directors in the 1990s and was an active member of the organization for many years. He guided journalism students in the production of the newspaper, The Latino Reporter, that covered the NAHJ convention.
In July 2013 he married Rebecca (Bek) Millhouse, an Australian artist and educator. In 2018 they moved to Quincy, Florida, to run their own bed and breakfast inn, the Millhouse Inn, and where Mr. Garcia continued to support social justice causes.
Mr. Garcia affected countless lives and his boundless energy and enthusiasm were infectious. He loved photography, music, and classic films, and recently had taken up woodworking. He enjoyed basketball and playing cards.
Mr. Garcia is survived by his wife; two daughters, Sara M. Garcia of New York and Carmen Elisa Garcia of Providence, R.I.; his sister and brother-in-law, Sylvia and Walter Kernodle, of Pembroke Pines, FL.; six nieces and nephews.
For those asking for a way to remember John, thank you for considering making a donation in his memory to the NAHJ Scholarship Fund (www.nahj.org) or LatinoJustice PRLDEF (www.latinojustice.org).
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About the NAHJ
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is the largest organization of Latino journalists in the United States and dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanics in the news industry. The mission of NAHJ is to increase the number of Latinos in the newsrooms and to work toward fair and accurate representation of Latinos in the news media. Established in April 1984, NAHJ created a national voice and unified vision for all Hispanic journalists. NAHJ has over 3,300 members, including working journalists, journalism students, other media-related professionals, and journalism educators. For more information please visit NAHJ.org or follow on Twitter @NAHJ.
Media Contact:
BA Snyder
Veritas Group for NAHJ
512.630.6337
BA@TheVeritasWay.com