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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION 37, on the death of A. N. McKay. Yet J.F. had already developed a close, if professional, rapport with every Tribune staffer, a stern taskmaster who simply wanted -- and would get ~ a good newspaper made better each day. He was equally adept at the stinging rebuke and the comforting compliment. He is remembered as well for the kindness and generosity quietly extended to employees in need. Like Kearns before him, Fitzpatrick had a limited education. He did graduate from high school in Burlington, where his father, a railroad engineer, moved the family after jobs dried up in Pennsylvania. J.F. was always fascinated by railroading, and except for the chance and brief D&RG assignment to Salt Lake and the incidental exposure to Tom Kearns, seemed destined for a career with trains and routine gold-watch retirement somewhere in Iowa. Instead, he found his natural niche in Utah, became "Mr. Tribune," an architect and first president of Newspaper Agency Corporation, a towering community leader and arbiter, an influential and inspirational publisher who fashioned a Pulitzer Prize newspaper. He died quietly at home of a heart attack at 73, on a beautiful late-summer day in 1960 after watching the Utah Open Golf Tournament at the Salt Lake Country Club. His picture was on the Tribune's Page 1 the next morning. He would never have allowed it. But he would have likely agreed with the eulogy by Bishop Robert Dwyer at the funeral: "If we seek the keynote of his life, its leit-motiv, there is only one term that is adequate and inevitable: stewardship." John F. Fitzpatrick epitomized the good steward. He sought to be nothing else but became much more. He was also a man for whom Halls of Fame are created and made worthwhile for preserving memories of great works. (The Hall of Fame conveys its appreciation to Jerry O'Brien, assistant publisher of the Salt Lake Tribune, for his research and preparation of the foregoing copy, which was presented before the Utah Press Association, in convention assembled, on February 10, 1979.) 502 |
