New Orleans sports journalist Virgets dies at 77

Ronnie Virgets, a New Orleans writer and broadcaster, died Monday night at a nursing home in Destrehan, La. Virgets, 77, was especially known for his racetrack writing and won two Eclipse Awards, the first for a story about the funeral of famed Fair Grounds publicity director Allen “Black Cat” Lacombe, the second for the 1993 fire that destroyed the old Fair Grounds grandstand.

Virgets, a New Orleans native known well there in racing circles and beyond, wrote for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and later in Gambit Weekly and New Orleans Magazine. At the Times-Picayune, Virgets penned a column called “Railbird Ronnie” covering the racing scene at Fair Grounds, where he is a member of the Press Box Hall of Fame.