Media room at AMP will be named for late Journal columnist Bill Reynolds. Here's the plan.
PROVIDENCE — Plans are in the works to name the media room at the Amica Mutual Pavilion after the late Providence Journal columnist Bill Reynolds.
"It's touching and fitting that a room in which Billy spent so much time will be named in his honor," said Reynolds' longtime partner Elizabeth Abbott. "No one deserves it more."
Larry Lepore, the general manager of the AMP and the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority, said he and Dan McConaghy, executive director of the RICC Authority, spoke about honoring Reynolds after his wake.
"I spent over 20 years talking to Bill at basketball games," Lepore recalled. "No one in the media came into that room who didn't look for him."
Reynolds died in July at age 78. He spent almost four decades writing for The Providence Journal, as well as authoring a dozen books. He was a Barrington native who starred on the basketball court for Barrington High School, Worcester Academy and Brown University in the 1960s. His long-running Saturday column — For What It’s Worth, in which he'd opine on the Sports stories of the day and so much more — was must-reading for Journal subscribers.
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Reynolds stepped away from full-time duties at The Journal in the summer of 2019 and fully retired from the newspaper in early 2021.
"There are certain people in your life who'd have a profound impact on your day. I always looked forward to meeting [Bill]," Lepore said.
He noted that Sen. Frank Lombardi, D-Cranston, will introduce the measure in the Senate to name the room for Reynolds. Both House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio have indicated their support and Lepore said he's hopeful that the Assembly will pass the measure early in the new year and that the plaques would be in place by late January or early February.
It will be the only room in the AMP named after someone, Lepore said.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: AMP to honor Journal columnist Bill Reynolds with dedication
