Vermont Longtime Political Columnist Dies

By: Peter Freyne, a longtime Vermont political columnist, has died. He was 59.

Freyne, a cancer survivor who had suffered seizures and a strep infection in recent months, died early Wednesday at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington. Hospital spokesman Mike Noble confirmed his death.

A former taxicab driver, he worked as a news reporter for radio station WDEV and later the Vanguard Press, where he started the "Inside Track" column that became his trademark later at Seven Days, a weekly newspaper. It was required reading for Vermont Statehouse regulars, skewering the high and mighty in a style that was part gossip column, part investigative journalism.