James A. Holechek
Public relations executive pursued his interests as a writer, artist, historic preservationist, boater and philanthropist
James A. Holechek, a retired Baltimore public relations executive, newspaper columnist, historic preservationist and author whose books include a history of Cross Keys, died of heart failure Wednesday at his Village of Cross Keys home. He was 86.
The son of Joseph Edward Holechek, a wood patternmaker, and Genevieve McGuire, a homemaker, James Albert Holechek was born in Williamsport, Pa.
“I was born on the Susquehanna. It will always be my river,” Mr. Holechek wrote in “Boating,” his weekly Sunday Sun recreation column. “The Susquehanna has always held a wonderful fascination for me. Its name was even fun for youngsters to say although if my mother ever heard us talking about it she’d say, ‘Don’t go near the river.’”
Mr. Holechek and his family later moved to Hamilton, where he attended public schools. He graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1949. He received a scholarship to the Maryland Institute College of Art, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1953 and a master’s degree in 1969.
During the summer of 1953, Mr. Holechek canoed the 444-mile North Branch of the Susquehanna to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Eighteen years later, he and his son canoed the 150-mile West Branch, which flows from Lock Haven, Pa., to the bay.
Mr. Holechek was drafted into the Army in 1953. After completing engineer supply school, he was assigned to the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. A paratrooper, he was later assigned to the parachute supply and maintenance company.
After his discharge from the military, he joined the advertising department of the old Sunday Sun, specializing in real estate advertising copy and layout.
In 1956 he joined Newhoff-Blumberg Advertising, then took a job working for Flight Refueling Inc. at Friendship Airport, now BWI Marshall Airport. After the company moved to Ohio in 1962, he joined the staff of Emery Advertising and did publicity work for clients.
In 1965, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland hired him as public relations director. Three years later, he was hired by Unitec Industries as public and financial relations director. When that company was sold in 1970, he opened James Holechek & Associates on North Liberty Street; the business later moved to Cathedral Street and then to the Village of Cross Keys.
He also owned and operated a personnel agency and a national public relations seminar business, and while writing his Sunday Sun column he also wrote a marketing column for the Daily Record, the Maryland Business Journal and The Jeffersonian.
He was accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and later served as the society’s Maryland chapter president. He also served as president of the Baltimore Public Relations Council, Metro Crime Stoppers and the MICA alumni association.
He was active in the Baltimore Junior Association of Commerce and served on its board as well as on the boards of Big Brothers, the Children’s Guild, Lafayette Square Association, YMCA, Rotary Club and the National Association of Businessmen.
“He embraced people of all ethnic backgrounds and played a vital role in the upward mobility of minorities,” said his son, Mark Holechek of Maplewood, N.J.
After retiring in 1990, Mr. Holechek ran for a seat in the House of Delegates. He won the Republican primary but was defeated in the general election.
“Jim was well-respected and highly regarded and had an absolute flawless reputation for professionalism,” said Gilbert Sandler, a retired Baltimore advertising executive, author and WYPR radio personality.
Mr. Holechek’s varied interests included preservation, writing books, painting in watercolors and restoring houses. He sailed his boat, Sensation, in the Chesapeake Bay as well as in the North and South Atlantic.
He founded an Inner Harbor sailboat race in 1971 that became known as the Ice Cream Stick Regatta, which was held annually for five years. He also helped bring classic and restored wood boats to the Classic Yacht Parades at the Inner Harbor.
He founded the Maryland Iceboat Club, which in 1977 was selected to host the World Cup Iceboat Championship on the Miles River. He was also a past member of the Gibson Island Club and Yacht Squadron and the Annapolis Yacht Club.
He restored a 1917 37 mm cannon for the American Legion post in Galeton, Pa., where he also restored a town bandstand and wrote a walking-tour pamphlet of the historic village.
He also wrote a walking tour of Federal Hill, where he had restored an 1840 rowhouse. Under the auspices of JH Homes Inc., he also restored waterfront homes in Fells Point and on the Magothy River.
In 1990 he organized a fundraising campaign for a Maryland memorial on the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, Pa. He raised $225,000, held a national search for a sculptor and supervised installation of a bronze statue that was dedicated in 1994.
In 2003, he helped restore the historic St. John’s AME Church, which was built by freed slaves in Ruxton.
A longtime resident of Baltimore County’s Armagh Village, he lived on Gibson Island from 1978 to 1989. He and his wife moved to Goucher Woods, near Towson, then in 1992 to Cross Keys.
Mr. Holechek’s book “Baltimore’s Two Cross Keys Villages,” published in 2003, explores the original Cross Keys — named after an 18th-century inn on Falls Road near Cold Spring Lane — and the present day Village of Cross Keys, built by James W. Rouse in the early 1960s.
Another of his five books, “Henry Perky: The Shredded Wheat King,” chronicles the life Henry Drushel Perky, whose stomach problems and duodenal ulcers led to the creation of shredded wheat, America’s oldest packaged cereal, which landed on breakfast tables in 1891.
Mr. Holecheck was a member of the Johns Hopkins Club, the Center Club, the Explorers Club and the Baltimore Charcoal Club. At his request, there will be no service. In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife of 62 years, the former Patricia Ann Phillips; a daughter, Jo Ann Etter of Severna Park; four grandchildren; and two greatgrandchildren.