BALTIMORE — Rob Hiaasen once wrote a description of his ideal job: “I would like to be paid for the occasional amusing remark or for simply showing up promptly to work and bringing in cookies from time to time,” he wrote a colleague. “Alas, there’s no market for those outstanding qualities.”
But he was wrong. His wryly observant writing style and his generous mentoring of young journalists assured him of a role in several newsrooms, from The Baltimore Sun to, most recently, The Capital Gazette, where he tragically was killed along with colleagues on Thursday.
Hiaasen, who lived in Timonium, had just celebrated his 33rd wedding anniversary to Maria Hiaasen, a former journalist who teaches English at Dulaney High School, one week ago. Thursday was her 58th birthday.
Hiaasen became known as “Big Rob” during the high school years of their children, Ben, 29, an attorney in Towson; Samantha, 27, an assistant manager of the Barnes & Noble at the Inner Harbor, and Hannah, 26, an artist who also works at a furnishings store in New York, their mother said.
“He was a tall man, 6-foot-5, but he was a giant not just in stature but in character,” said Maria Hiaasen, who after a whirlwind courtship married her husband five months after their first date. “He was just the best husband.”
“He loves words, he loves humor,” she said. “He loved journalism, he loved helping those young writers at the Gazette.”
