[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 29, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              A TRIBUTE IN HONOR OF THE LIFE OF PHIL YOST

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 29, 2014

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and work of an 
extraordinary man, Phil Yost, who died at the age of 63 after a three-
year battle with cancer.
   The venerable San Jose Mercury News, Mr. Yost's employer for more 
than a quarter century, captured the essence of this special man in its 
obituary.

        Phil Yost was a gentle and decent man, a writer with an 
     ethical compass that belied the stereotype of the cynical 
     journalist. He was known for an unerring sense of fairness, a 
     willingness to consider an argument from another side. Mr. 
     Yost possessed a wry and wicked sense of humor, a light touch 
     that emerged in his writing and life.

   Phil Yost was born in Chicago on February 6, 1951. He attended 
Earlham College, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. The child of a 
Mennonite family, he was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam 
War, and a tutor of underprivileged children in Cincinnati. He worked 
at the Middletown Journal in Ohio and the Cincinnati Post, and joined 
the Mercury News in 1981. In 2006 he left the Mercury to work at the 
Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and in 2010 became the policy and 
press aide to former California State Senator Joe Simitian. Simitian 
fondly noted that ``unflinching fairness'' was Yost's most aggravating 
trait.
   Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in 
honoring the life and work of Phil Yost, and in extending condolences 
to his wife Susan, his parents Elnore and Burton Yost, his brother and 
sisters, and his entire family. He will be missed by all who had the 
good fortune to know him and be the beneficiaries of his extraordinary 
work. Phil Yost strengthened our democracy with his instructive 
journalism, and I'm proud to have known him and was privileged to call 
him my friend.

                          ____________________