Alan McConagha

Alan McConagha, a prize-winning Washington, DC journalist and kind-hearted husband, dad, brother, uncle, and friend, died on October 31, 2023 at the age of 91. He enjoyed traveling, reading, canoeing, bird watching, and a 41-year newspaper career that included covering Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Alabama and interviewing Mother Teresa in Calcutta.

Known for his gentle disposition, wry sense of humor, and insatiable curiosity, Al reported from more than 40 countries before retiring in 1997. He received several accolades including a Population Action Council award, an Overseas Press Club award, two Edward Meemum Conservation Writing awards, two Scripps Howard awards, and numerous Page One Awards in Twin Cities competitions. He was nominated several times for a Pulitzer Prize and was the first runner-up in 1975 for his coverage of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Al's first newspaper job was as a City Hall reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser during Rosa Park's historic bus boycott and the emergence of the civil rights movement. In 1957, he joined the staff of the Minneapolis Tribune where he tackled numerous positions from crime reporter to political writer to theater and arts critic - the infamous role in which he disparaged the stage performance of his future wife, Barbara. After meeting Al at a party some months later, Barbara thankfully forgave him, quit acting, and often joked that their marriage was his punishment for the lousy review. Though their spectacular partnership began rather unconventionally, it was their honeymoon that made the local news: Al, an avid canoe adventurer, famously spent several weeks after their wedding paddling alone in the Minnesota boundary waters while Barbara returned to the big city. Though true opposites, Al and Barbara delighted in each other, enjoying a 57-year marriage full of fun, laughter, theater, and travel.

In 1967, Al became the Minneapolis Tribune's London Bureau Chief and European Correspondent. During their three years abroad, Barbara and Al welcomed their first two children, Bill and Megan. They returned to the states in 1970 when Al joined the paper's Washington, DC bureau. Two years later their son Adam was born. It was in the Tribune's DC bureau where Al spent the bulk of his career covering Soviet-American relations, American farmland erosion, Forest Service logging practices, Israeli elections, the PLO, and the global food supply.

For the final decade of his career, Al joined the Washington Times to cover the State Department. During that time he reported on the Lebanese Civil War from Beirut, which he described as his scariest assignment. He ended his career as the paper's Features Editor, a role for which he was recognized in a national competition for cultural coverage.

Al's most rewarding interview was with Mother Teresa. He considered his most remote endeavor his stop in Timbuktu. His favorite assignment was the Paris Peace Accords toward the end of the Vietnam War. And his proudest experience was bringing exposure to the famine in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970s.

A voracious reader, Al tackled some 40 books a year, mostly non-fiction. He was an enthusiastic bird watcher who wore binoculars around his neck at all times. Proudly adhering to American Birding Association rules, he logged sightings of more than 700 North American species. He spotted a few of the more elusive birds during the 15 years he and Barbara wintered in Key West. It was there, sitting on his porch in the warm Florida breezes, that Al devoured his books and continued writing long after his journalism career - he even completed a novel about a Minnesota politician.

Al was born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin. He graduated from Earlham College in 1954 and received a Masters degree in History the following year from the University of Wisconsin. He was the son of two Lawrence University professors: Jessie Mae McConagha, who taught French, and William McConagha, who led the Economics Department.

In a family of large and loud personalities, Al was endearingly considered the calming force that held them together. His peaceful nature, wisdom, and good humor were a soothing force to his loved ones. He will be missed by his wife, Barbara; son Bill and his wife, Jennie; daughter Megan and her husband, John; son Adam and his wife, Jackie; and six grandchildren who brought him absolute joy and enormous smiles even in his final days: Wyatt, Molly, Walker, Hudson, Kyla, and Carter.

Celebration of life December 2, 2023.