Kansas newspaper industry loses four colleagues

Posted February 19, 2014

Editor's note: The Wichita Eagle and Emporia Gazette contributed to this article. The picture includes Bob Greer with colleague Bill Brown at the 2013 Kansas Press Association annual meeting.

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The Kansas newspaper industry lost four long-time newspapermen in the past 10 days: John Frazier, Garden City Telegram; Ray Call, Emporia Gazette; Bob Greer, Protection Press; and Mike Peterson, Wyandotte Echo.

• JOHN FRAZIER

John Frazier, a longtime reporter and managing editor at The Garden City Telegram, died Monday, Feb. 10, 2014 at Manor of the Plains in Dodge City. He was 85.

Frazier started working for The Telegram in 1955 as a reporter, left for The Hutchinson News for a period of time and then returned to The Telegram in the early 1960s to be the managing editor, a position he held for close to 30 years.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. March 29 at the Presbyterian Church in Garden City.

• RAY CALL

Call, the former executive editor of the Emporia Gazette, died Friday, Feb. 14, 2014 at his home.

After completing service in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he taught at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia and did part-time work for the Gazette. He worked for the Kansas City Kansan, a Stauffer Publications property, but returned to the Gazette about a year later. Except for a short stint in his hometown of Sedan, he was at the Gazette his entire career.

Over a 40-year span, Call became well known and respected for his editorial writing and leadership skills. He received awards for column and editorial writing from The Associated Press and the Kansas City Press Club, among others, and was named to the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Services for Ray Call were Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014 at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Emporia. Memorial contributions to the Emporia Public Library or the St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church may be made in care of Roberts-Blue-Barnett Funeral Home, 605 State St., Emporia, Kan. 66801.

• BOB GREER

Greer, long-time editor of the Protection Press, died Saturday, Feb.15, 2014 at the Comanche County Hospital in Coldwater. He was 88.

He was last's year's recipient of the Clyde M. Reed Jr. Master Editor Award.

He wrote for the Boulder Daily Camera and the Lamar Daily News and was a stringer for the Denver Post and Pueblo Chieftain. Other papers for which he worked included the Scottsbluff Star-Herald and the Holdredge Daily Citizen in Nebraska.

In 1959, he moved to Garden City and worked for the Garden City Telegram as a general reporter and sports editor. Shortly after Nov. 15, 1959, when Herb and Bonnie Clutter and their children Nancy, 16, and Kenyon, 15, were found murdered, he was the reporter assigned to cover the story and subsequent trial of the killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith.

In 1986, Greer was persuaded by friends and supporters to start the Protection Press, which now has 800 subscribers.

Funeral services for Bob Greer are set for 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 21, 2014 at South Central Elementary School Gymnasium in Protection. Visitation will be from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home in Coldwater. Memorials may be sent to Protection Township Library in care of Hatfield-Prusa Funeral Home, P.O. Box 417, Coldwater, Kan. 67029.

• MIKE PETERSON

Mike Peterson, 72, who owned the Wyandotte Echo with his wife, Roberta, died Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014 of complications from pneumonia.

He was a state representative for the 32nd House district from Wyandotte County and had served from 1979 to 1990 and again since 2005.Peterson was an attorney from Kansas City, Kan.

A wake service is set for 4 p.m. Friday and funeral Mass at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Cathedral at St. Peters, 14th and Grandview, Kansas City, Kan.

Click here to read Ray Call's obituary from the Emporia Gazette.

Click here to read a tribute to Call by Bobbi Mlynar in the Emporia Gazette.

Click here to read a tribute to Greer by Beccy Tanner in the Wichita Eagle.

Click here to read a tribute to Greer in the Garden City Telegram.

More information will be shared as it is received.