For the past almost 2 years, I’ve brought you news of comings and goings of other journalists, media personalities and what’s going on in the business. Today, I’m taking the liberty of dedicating this space to report a painful move in my personal life.
It is with deep sorrow that I write of my father’s passing, after an agonizing 8 month battle with cancer. Julio A. Villafañe died a little more than an hour after the end of father’s day.
He was a brilliant man, who had an amazing international career as a chief civil engineer, heading multi-national projects. He once even worked for NASA and retired from his job as a U.S. foreign service officer, having worked in Africa, the Middle East and Central and South America.
Dad even had a tie to the media. He had a great voice and in the 1950’s moved to Los Angeles to try to become a Spanish-language radio newsman. That didn’t work out, but it just showed he was a little ahead of his time.
In his memory and during this period of grieving, I will not be doing any other posts this week.