Gerry Davies

| Tonia Moxley

tonia.moxley@roanoke.com, 981-3234

Gerry Davies, a former Roanoke Times editorial writer and a columnist for the Current, is waging his second battle against a rare form of cancer in a Rhode Island hospital.

Davies enraged politicians around the New River Valley with his sometimes acid opinion columns on sewers, elections and other local government dramas.

Now 51, the New Jersey native worked at the Times from 1994 to 2005, until moving with his wife, The Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies, to Providence.

Fischer-Davies is the former rector of Blacksburg's Christ Episcopal Church and currently pastors St. Martin's Church in Providence.

In his career at the Roanoke Times, Davies served as a copy editor, layout editor, business editor, metro editor and finally, editorial writer.

A longtime newsman, he also worked at the Toledo Blade and the Detroit Free Press and is currently employed as communications director for the Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers Association.

Davies was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in 2007, but later went into remission.

The cancer returned recently and has spread to his lungs and tongue. He is undergoing treatment at a Providence hospital, Fischer-Davies said.

"So many people have just remarked on have brave the whole family has been," said Scott Russell, associate rector at Christ Church and a friend of the family.

"A lot of people really have been inspired, hearing their struggles and their determination, their desire ... to share everything with us, hopes and fears," Russell said.

Since 2007, the family has communicated with friends and former parishioners through caringbridge.org, a site similar to a blog that allows medical patients to keep in touch with loved ones.

Follow Davies' condition on the Web: www.caringbridge.org/visit/gerrydavies