Witty and gregarious, Philip E. Bash was a people person who lived by the motto “It never hurts to ask.”
With humor and charm, Mr. Bash used his networking talents to connect people, fostering relationships that led to the creation of community organizations and successful fundraising ventures.
“He was a really social person,” said his daughter Barbara. “He had this keen interest in others, and he was a real interviewer. He always wanted to get in there and find out who somebody was. People just responded to that.”
Mr. Bash, 84, a longtime Barrington resident who was publisher of the Barrington Courier-Review newspaper and a founder of the non-profit Hospice of Northeastern Illinois, died of congestive heart failure Thursday, Dec. 1, at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.
Born in Huntington, Ind., Mr. Bash studied business administration at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. It was there that he met Flora “Flo” Oberg, who became his wife of 55 years. After graduation in 1942, the couple married and Mr. Bash joined the Navy, serving as a lieutenant in the Pacific during World War II, family members said.
The couple moved to Chicago after the war, and Mr. Bash pursued a career in advertising. He worked with the Leo Burnett agency, then moved to the Clinton E. Frank agency, where he eventually became president. The couple moved to the Barrington area in 1950. Mr. Bash’s wife died in 1997.
In the 1970s, Mr. Bash left advertising. While he was considering his next step, friend John Rockwood asked him to buy half of his company, Barrington Press, which published the Barrington Courier-Review.
“He guided it,” Rockwood said. “Being in advertising all that time, it wasn’t too foreign to him. He really ran it.”
Under Mr. Bash’s leadership, the company expanded from a one-newspaper weekly to nine publications. When it was sold in 1986, the company was generating six to seven times more revenue, a feat credited to Mr. Bash, Barrington Press general manager Andy Rockwood said.
“It was grow or die,” Andy Rockwood said. “Advertisers were increasingly getting larger, they wanted more and more geography. In the earlier days it was just Barrington merchants and the Barrington paper, and that was fine. But as the area got larger, they needed all the surrounding towns as well.”
After Mr. Bash relinquished the reins of Barrington Press, he devoted more time to community organizations. In addition to his involvement with the Barrington Historical Society, the Barrington Area Arts Council and the Barrington Area Council on Aging, Mr. Bash was on the board of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston. He chaired a campaign in the late 1980s that raised more than $10 million for the seminary, said David Heetland, vice presidentfor development at the seminary.
“Phil really was a friend-raiser for the seminary because he would go out there and tell church people, if you want to have strong ministers you have to have a strong seminary,” Heetland said.
Mr. Bash was active in the community until his death, and he was always looking forward to his next project, said Carolyn Handler, president and chief executive of Hospice of Northeastern Illinois.
“He was extremely passionate about helping the community be the best it could be and supporting all the non-profits that needed assistance,” Handler said. “He was forever connecting people to one another.”
Other survivors include another daughter, Amy; two sons, Philip “King” and Roger ; and eight grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Barrington United Methodist Church, 98 Algonquin Rd., Barrington.
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jfrancisco@tribune.com
