[Baltimore Sun] Robert I. ‘Ric’ Cottom Jr., historian, author and WYPR commentator, dies
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Robert I. “Ric” Cottom Jr., an esteemed historian, author and publisher who entertained WYPR for more than two decades with his historical vignettes, died of coronary artery disease May 31 at Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Roland Park resident was 77.
“Ric left his deepest mark on the Maryland memory by telling stories on the radio — about state history on WYPR,” wrote Robert J. Brugger, former Johns Hopkins University Press regional editor, author and historian, who had attended graduate school with Mr. Cottom at Hopkins, in an email.
“These five-minute vignettes, always reflecting his superbly dry humor and taste for irony, aired once a week. The series owed its success to writing on a distinguished level but also Ric’s pointed Pennsylvania diction and resonant baritone voice, which reminded me of Edward R. Murrow and others of the postwar radio world.”
Anthony Brandon, former WYPR general manager, was an admirer of Mr. Cottom’s on-air reflections.
“In his well-researched stories of Maryland’s history, Ric narrated fascinating stories of notables as well as ordinary folks who made a mark on Maryland’s history,” he said. “WYPR and its audience around Maryland were enriched by hearing ‘Your Maryland,’ and I will miss Ric and his eloquent stories delivered with his magnificent voice.”
Richard Irving Cottom Jr., son of Richard J. Cottom Sr., a lawyer, and June M. Matten, was born and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Cottom earned a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and then served with the Army in Vietnam during the war.
He obtained his doctorate in history from Hopkins, where he and Mr. Brugger, also a Vietnam veteran, met each other in 1970 and became close friends.
The two men were students of David Herbert Donald, whom Mr. Brugger described as a “master historian and stern taskmaster.”
“David deserved his wide reputation — and made no apologies — for his ‘sink or swim’ approach to graduate training,” Mr. Brugger said.
In addition to both sharing the comradeship of the battlefield, both men were married.
“Ric spent his honeymoon in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress, a story he loved to tell, along with how the summer before, he and his wife, Barb, had driven around New Jersey beach towns in Ric’s British sports car — sold before he entered Hopkins.”
Mr. Cottom began his academic career as an assistant professor at Clemson University teaching history.
In the early 1980s, he and his wife purchased a home on Elmhurst Road in Roland Park, where in an attic study, he taught himself magazine and book composition and “prepared everything, text and art for printing and binding,” Mr. Brugger said.
Mr. Cottom joined the staff of the Maryland Historical Society, now the Maryland Center for History and Culture, where he assumed production control of its old Maryland Historical Magazine, of which he later became its editor, and headed the society’s book publication program.
“He loved to work on some writing he had underway or someone else’s manuscript, pounding away like a Dickens character up in the belfry and then, about 4, either take a stroll up to Eddie’s of Roland Park for something to fix for supper, simply sit down (in warm weather in the second-floor Rangoon Room) with Barb or a visitor and savor a martini or two,” Mr. Brugger said. “Then, there, we had so much to laugh about.”
Robert I. “Ric” Cottom Jr. established the Chesapeake Book Co.
“As editor of the Maryland Historical Magazine, he was very helpful in my early work on the Maryland Civil War story,” said Charley Mitchell, a Maryland author, editor and historian. “His keen editorial eye, combined with his expertise as a historian, strengthened my articles in the Magazine that became parts of my first book, ‘Maryland Voices of the Civil War.’ His fellow historians will miss him.”
After leaving the historical society, Mr. Cottom established the Chesapeake Book Co., which published Chesapeake regional history, biography and environmental studies.
He was also co-author with the late Mary Ellen Hayward of “Maryland in the Civil War. A House Divided,” and co-editor with Judith A. Bailey of “After Chancellorsville, Letters from the Heart: The Civil War Letters of Private Walter G. Dunn and Emma Randolph.”
In 2002, he expanded his repertoire when he began voicing “Your Maryland” on Thursday evenings on WYPR at 5:45.
His broadcasts began with his mellifluous intoning, “Good evening, I’m Ric Cottom. Welcome to Your Maryland,” and for the next five minutes he held listeners spellbound with his introduction and subsequent tales of the famous, infamous and not so famous.
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“From accused witches and the murderous career of gunsmith John Dandy through tales of Johnny U and the Greatest Game Ever Played, ”Your Maryland’ covers nearly four centuries of the Free State’s heroes and scoundrels, its athletes, two- and four-legged, beautiful spies, brilliant writers, misunderstood pirates, and ghosts. All of that color, suspense and humor — is part of your Maryland.”
“At our first meeting in 2002, I thought, who is this crazy curmudgeon?” said Lisa Morgan, the veteran WYPR producer who worked closely with Mr. Cottom for more than two decades.
“This was a new thing for him, but he had an affinity for radio and embraced it. He was just such a great storyteller and had a wonderful radio voice,” Ms. Morgan said.
“He was a person who could take you there and he was the key to drawing you in, plus Ric had a trove of resources,” she said.”It was an informative five-minute broadcast,” adding: “I enjoyed our relationship. Ric was a very special guy.”
In 2017, some of his “Your Maryland” pieces were published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
On the anniversary last week of D-Day and in tribute to Mr. Cottom, WYPR dipped into its archive of “Your Maryland” pieces and aired his tribute to the 29th Division — known as the Blue and the Gray — that assaulted Omaha Beach in the wee hours of June 6, 1944.
Mr. Cottom’s wife of many years, Barbara, a retired Baltimore County Public Schools administrator, died April 23.
Plans for services for Mr. Cottom are incomplete.
Mr. Cottom’s only survivors are several cousins.
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