John Bogert, Daily Breeze columnist with cancer was 63

John Bogert is the South Bay columnist who announced in his final column last month in the Daily Breeze that he had stopped treatment for his colon cancer. The paper has just posted the news that Bogert died Sunday afternoon at home in Pasadena.

"John was both the voice and the face of the Daily Breeze," said former executive editor Phillip Sanfield, who worked with Bogert for 25 years.

"The best damn guy ever," said his daughter, Rachael Bogert. "They don't come better than that."

Born Oct. 7, 1948, in Utica, N.Y., Bogert grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., getting his start in journalism when a reporter hired the young University of Florida track star to call in the results from his meets.

By the end of his life, he would become the "Voice of the South Bay," writing some 6,500 columns, pontificating about everything from politics to guns to his family's foibles, his eldest daughter's wedding and, ultimately, his cancer.

"Remember the geezers telling us that it was health and not wealth that you should wish for?" he wrote in his final June 24 column. "Well, they were right. Not that all the wishing in the world will change whatever it is being secreted in the uncut cards."