Iowa Columnist Rob Borsellino Dies of Lou Gehrig's Disease

By: E&P Staff Des Moines Register columnist Rob Borsellino died Saturday night in a Des Moines hospice of Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 56.

Towards the end of his life, Borsellino wrote his newspaper column from his home -- typing it with one finger.

Borsellino (profiled by E&P Online this February) was a former New Yorker who came to Iowa after his wife, columnist Rekha Basu, joined the Register in 1991. He became a columnist seven years later, and, wrote Register staff writer Mike Kilen, "dined with bigwigs and chatted up the homeless, hit city hall meetings and chased ambulances, often in the same day."

The columnist came to Iowa grudgingly, but later wrote "that this new, strange land where the coffee was weak and everybody's in bed by 10 was quite a civil, literate place." Kilen noted: "Friends and colleagues say Iowans warmed to his outsider's view of their state, although he took his share of shots at Iowa, because of his sense of humor and his fairness."

Kilen's article continued: "Borsellino maintained his New York attitude and tabloid-style staccato writing and approached his column like an anthropologist, offering a fresh, winking eye to a reserved Midwest city. He relished the role and even enjoyed being interrupted by fans of his column while he ate lunch downtown. ... Borsellino wrote that Iowa had civilized him. He realized he hadn't given anyone the finger in two years, he wrote in a 2000 column."

Before coming to Iowa, Borsellino's journalism career included a stint as editor of the Kingston (N.Y.) Daily Freeman -- where he hired Basu. They married in 1985.