Amby Smith, 65-Year Newspaper Veteran, Dies at 81

By: E&P Staff

Amby Smith, a longtime sports reporter and columnist for The Kent County (R.I.) Daily Times, died July 21. He was 87.

Smith began working as a full-time sports writer for the Pawtuxet Valley (R.I.) Daily Times in 1940 and quickly made his section a prominent and permanent feature in the newspaper.

However, with the onset of World War II, Smith began covering council meetings and other news, as he was unable to go overseas because of a bout with rheumatic fever. (At the time he also worked part-time as a guard at Quonset Point and as a rector at the shipyard.) He was also given the unfortunate job of asking families of dead soldiers from the area for information and a photograph.

Once the war ended, Smith was able to go back to covering sports, donning his trademark fedora and smoking cigars. He quickly became one of the paper's most popular -- and recognizable -- writers and was the first staffer to get a regular column, ?Ambling with Amby.?

Smith also began emceeing sports banquets and roasts. At his peak, he did about 100 per year, making the audiences laugh and the testimonial roast victims cringe with his clever jokes and wit. According to an article in The Kent County Daily Times, he never refused and was never paid.

Forty years after he began -- and after a football field and the press box at a local high school were named for him -- Smith retired. However, he soon returned to the Daily Times to oversee the weekly ?Senior Scene? section.

In 2003, editors asked Smith to revive ?Ambling with Amby? which he did happily. His final column ran last week.