This is a hard message to write: Our funny and doggedly determined friend and colleague Eileen Goode has passed away

This is a hard message for me, and our newsroom, to write. We offer our condolences to the friends and family of Eileen Goode, who died on Saturday, Sept. 24. She was 42 years old.

Eileen was a reporter in Charlottesville Tomorrow’s newsroom for four months this year, before taking leave. She joined us in March with energy and enthusiasm that propelled us. In those months in the newsroom she gave us many gifts: friendship, a true love for community news, an unending curiosity about local and state government, and a reminder of the joy that it is to be a mission-driven reporter. Her favorite part of the job was getting out and talking to community members where they live and spend time. She especially loved reporting in more rural counties, which she was just beginning to do. She truly loved her job and this community, and reminded us often, especially when things were difficult, why we do what we do.

And Eileen was extraordinarily funny. She found joy and humor in every part of life, light and dark, and shared that with all of us. She would probably remind us at this point that she truly loved our newsroom dogs, especially Duff, and that we might have put that higher in the story.

Woman sitting in an office chair with a dog jumping up on her lap to lick her chin. — Eileen Goode spent days in the Charlottesville Tomorrow newsroom with the team, including managing editor Jessie Higgins’ dog Duff. When Duff was sick earlier this year, she sent him a care package with flowers she insisted he could see (apparently dogs see blue?) and the loudest squeaky toy on earth. (Also blue.) Jessie Higgins/Charlottesville Tomorrow

Eileen mostly, though, loved her family dearly, especially her two daughters who encouraged her and were excited for her to get back into a newsroom. She spoke of them all the time, often marveling at how amazing and smart and full of energy they are. We hope Hailey and Harper continue to be inspired by their mom’s wit and courage, as we are.

Eileen graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia, and was a proud Wahoo and Bodo’s Bagels fan — who never ordered bagels. It was the Caesar salad that brought her the most delight. Her career began in Bristol Bay, Alaska in public media, then commercial broadcast in Massachusetts and years covering the financial industry before she came to Charlottesville Tomorrow.

We are so proud to have been her colleagues, even if our time together was too short. If you’d like to offer remembrances, please email us at egoode @ cvilletomorrow.org and we will put your notes together and pass them along to her family.

The funeral mass is open to anyone and will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Powhatan, Virginia.