Kirk Oberfeld, Editorial Writer - July 28, 2017

Kirk Oberfeld, 72, a former reporter, editor and editorial writer with the old Washington Star and the Washington Times, died July 28 at a hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich. The cause was multiple organ failure and liver disease, said a brother, Keith Oberfeld.

Attribution: WashingtonPost.com

Mr. Oberfeld was born in East Orange, N.J. A former reporter at the Philadelphia Bulletin, he worked for the Star from 1979 to 1982. He then went to the Times and was managing editor of the newspaper’s Insight magazine from 1985 to 1995. Later he was marketing director for ProFunds, an investment organization, and editor in chief of Philanthropy magazine. In 2007, he moved to New York City from Bethesda, Md., and was director of Business Executives for National Security, a nonprofit organization. He moved to Grand Rapids about five years ago.

Edward Kirk Oberfeld of Grand Rapids, Michigan, aged 72 years, passed away on July 28, 2017, after a brief illness. Kirk was born in East Orange, New Jersey, to Edward and Charlene Oberfeld, and grew up in New Jersey, Michigan and Ohio. Kirk graduated from Kalamazoo College with a B.A. in Political Science, and after additional post graduate work in Germany, took his M.A. in Journalism from Ohio State University.

Kirk lived most of his adult life on the East Coast, in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, Bethesda, Washington DC, and New York, but made frequent trips home to visit his parents in Grand Rapids, for famous holiday meals including his favorite oyster dressing. Kirk, as a conservative, and his brother and parents as liberals, engaged in many spirited discussions over the holidays. Kirk and Pam met and married in Washington D.C., and enjoyed living in there for many years.

Kirk's first love was journalism. He began his career in Columbus, Ohio, for UPI, and later went to work as an editorial writer for the Battle Creek Enquirer. He reported and editorialized for the Philadelphia Bulletin for many years, and sold and collected artworks in Baltimore for a time. He moved to Washington D.C. to work for the Washington Star and went on to create the first new weekly news magazine to be published in fifty years. That magazine, "Insight on the News", became one of the first strong conservative voices in Washington. Kirk later worked in fundraising for two large National Security non-profits. Kirk made frequent appearances on the Financial News Network, CNN, CNBC and C-Span as an expert political commentator. Kirk's passion was collecting period glass, furniture and art, primarily from the Art Nouveau period.

Attribution: obits.mlive.com

Jack Monroe Kneece, Jr., 80, March 2, 1937 - July 10, 2017

Jack M. Kneece was a longtime author and newspaperman whose news reporting career started with United Press International in Atlanta, Georgia. A seasoned journalist with an impressive list of credentials, Kneece worked with publications across the world, with his work having appeared domestically in California, Alaska, Washington, D.C., Louisiana, and Virginia newspapers. He was a congressional reporter with the Washington Star, a national editor for the Washington Times, and in the Washington bureau of the Associated Press on Capitol Hill. For his work with the Oakland Tribune in California, he was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the Alameda Newspaper Group.

In the 1960s, Kneece sold his first major story to Playboy Magazine and was the first reporter to land an interview with Bobby Baker during the Baker/Lyndon B. Johnson scandal of 1967. Kneece also worked internationally to establish Singapore's afternoon newspaper and served as a correspondent in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Kneece graduated from the University of South Carolina with a degree in English and a minor in journalism. He is the author of Family Treason: The Walker Spy Case, which has sold more than twenty-eight thousand copies. He writes for Go magazine of Charlotte, North Carolina, a Triple-A publication. In 2005, at the request of his alma mater, Kneece began teaching journalism as an adjunct professor.

Attribution: Pelicanpub.com