20010824 Columnist Barry Rascovar is leaving the Baltimore Sun

Sun's Rascovar to retire next Friday

Aug. 24, 2001 by Josh Kurtz, Staff Writer

ANNAPOLIS -- It's official: Barry Rascovar, the influential political columnist and deputy editorial page editor of The (Baltimore) Sun, will end his 30-year career on the newspaper next Friday.

Maryland politics may never be the same.

"The Sun paper's losing really one of the premiere columnists," said state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, a former governor and Baltimore mayor. "He was never very good to me. ... But I think he had some of the best insights into politics."

Rascovar, 55, accepted an early retirement package offered this summer by the Tribune Co., the Sun's Chicago parent.

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For 10 years as a reporter and 20 years as an opinion writer, Rascovar has been one of the most visible and powerful observers of Maryland politics.

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Some friends of Rascovar's privately grumble that he was the victim of a power struggle with Jacqueline Thomas, the editorial page editor who was brought in to replace Rascovar's friend and mentor, Joseph Sterne, who retired in 1998.

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