By: E&P Staff Eugene "Gene" Roguski, who was night editor of the old Chicago's American and its successor Chicago Today, has died at age 96, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.
Roguski died Sunday, Oct. 21, of complications of pneumonia in a hospital in Oshkosh, Wisc., the Tribune obituary by staff reporter Trevor Jensen said.
Gene Roguski was the father of Ruthellyn Musil, Tribune Co.'s senior vice president of corporate relations.
A native of St. Louis, Roguski began his journalism career at age 16 at the old International News Service. He served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, returning to the wire service after the war. He was the agency's bureau chief in St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., before heading its Chicago bureau.
He joined Chicago's American in 1957 as night editor, a position he continued to hold when the Tribune paper became a tabloid called Chicago Today. He retired when the paper folded in 1974.
"There couldn't have been a better first editor for a new reporter in Chicago than Gene," retired reporter Michael Hirsley told the Tribune. "Gene was our father figure, a teacher with infinite patience. He instructed quietly and praised lavishly."
The Tribune reported there would be a one-hour gathering before a funeral mass at 11 a.m. Saturday in St. Patrick's Church in Menasha, Wis.
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