Richard Starnes

1922 - 2018

Richard Starnes, who rose from $15-a-week copyboy at the old Washington Daily News to become a top executive in one of the nation's largest newspapers, died in Bradenton, Florida May 18, 2018. He was 95 years old. Cause of death was complications from pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Starnes was born in Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1922.

He dropped out of high school at age 16 when the death of his father left him and his mother destitute, and began a career in journalism that lasted more than half a century.

He served in the navy in World War II, seeing duty in the North Atlantic aboard Liberty ships and in the Caribbean on a submarine chaser.

At the wars' end he returned to the News as a reporter and later became a member of the Scripps Howard newspapers' Washington bureau. In 1954, at age 32 he was appointed managing editor of The New York World Telegram and Sun. He returned to Washington in 1962 and remained with Scripps Howard until 1977, covering assignments that ranged from the Eichmann trial to the civil rights movement.

In 1962 he won the Ernie Pyle Prize for reporting in Vietnam. He spent the final decade of his career as editor of The Fairfax (Virginia) Journal.

He was a licensed airplane pilot and an avid sailor. He was a member of the Dutch Treat Club in New York, and belonged to the London chapter of the Flat Earth Society. He took delight in displaying his framed certificate of membership in that organization in his kitchen and often made earnest, ostensibly serious attempts to recruit friends into the group.

He was the author of several novels. He had homes in Bradenton, Florida and Fort Valley, Virginia.

Mr. Starnes' marriage to the former Nancy Ely ended in divorce. He was later married to Judy Mann, a columnist for The Washington Post, who died in 2005.

Two children predeceased him, Richard S. Starnes and Caroline B. Starnes.

He is survived by a son, John A. Starnes (Beth Westbrook, spouse), of Bradenton FL; a step-daughter, Katherine Mann (Todd Bolender, spouse), of Fort Valley VA; two step-sons, Devin Mann and Jeffrey Mann, both of California; and eight grandchildren.

His ashes will be spread in the Gulf of Mexico and Fort Valley, Virginia.

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