Retiring with style

By Christie Campbell

One of the classiest ways to walk out of your place of employment for the last time was accomplished here Tuesday, thanks to the family of Mario Mullig.

Mario, who is 81 years old and has never looked his age, retired Tuesday after working 29 years at the Observer-Reporter as an editor.

As Mario said his good-byes in the third floor newsroom, his family pulled up outside the office in Washington, Pa., in a white, stretch limousine.

Mario walked out the employee entrance to see his three granddaughters, Sydney, age 3, Livia, 5, and Maria, 2, hanging out the limo’s back window, yelling “Hi Pappy!” His daughters, Suzanne Scott and Amy Antonio, took photographs as a chauffeur from Southpointe Limousine held the door for Mario to join his wife, Virginia. The family, including son-in-law Craig Antonio, then departed for dinner at Monterey Bay Fish Grotto on Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh.

Quite a sight! The newsroom was watching out the front windows and heard Mario say, “I think I’m going to cry!”

We’ll miss Mario.

As we were reminiscing with him yesterday over lunch, editor Liz Rogers recalled she hated coming to work when he was on the night desk because he was such a stickler for details he made her work extra hard. But as much as she resented it then, it made her a good reporter and that translated to her being a good editor.

He was that way at home too, Suzanne said. Her dad would whip out his pencil and correct her papers for school and if one of her siblings brought up a word at the dinner table and was unsure of its meaning, Mario would make him or her look it up in the dictionary.

(Caption: Mario Mullig waives goodbye to his coworkers. Photo: Christie Campbell)