B. H. Ridder Jr., 85, News Executive -- Rest in Peace

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Subject: B. H. Ridder Jr., 85, News Executive

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Date Posted: October 15, 2002 1:23:50 EDT
In reply to: Michelle 's message, "Recent obituaries you might have missed seeing elsewhere" on October 15, 2002 1:00:40 EDT

Bernard H. Ridder Jr., a third-generation newspaper executive who spent the years after college moving westward to help manage Ridder Publications' new properties and eventually rose to be the company's president and chief executive, died on Thursday at his home in San Mateo, Calif. He was 85.

In 1974, Mr. Ridder helped engineer the merger of Ridder Publications with Knight Newspapers and served as vice chairman and chairman of the executive committee of the combined company. Knight Ridder, which operates 32 daily newspapers, is the country's second-largest newspaper company, after Gannett.

The merger of Ridder Publications and Knight Newspapers was the culmination of an expansion effort that started with Mr. Ridder's father and uncles. He became an active participant in the company's westward expansion in the 1950's and 1960's as he moved up in the company, according to John Finnegan, a writer who is working on a history of the Ridder family.

The company's management in those years was very much a family affair. Mr. Ridder's brother, Joseph, became publisher of The Mercury News in San Jose, Calif., while another brother, Daniel, became publisher of The Long Beach Independent and The Long Beach Press-Telegram. His cousin B. J. Ridder was publisher of The Pasadena Independent & Star News, and another cousin, Walter, was publisher of The Post-Tribune in Gary, Ind. Mr. Finnegan said that the second-generation Ridder brothers said that they bought new papers as each son was born.

Mr. Ridder's two sons, Peter Ridder and P. Anthony Ridder, followed him into the business. Peter Ridder is the publisher of The Charlotte Observer and P. Anthony Ridder is the chairman and chief executive of Knight Ridder � the first Ridder to serve as the company's top executive.

Bernard H. Ridder Jr. was born and raised in New York City and spent more than three decades working at the company's newspapers, moving from The New York Journal of Commerce, which he joined in 1938, to Aberdeen, S.D., then Duluth, Minn., and later to St. Paul. In 1939, he married Jane Delano, a niece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1942, World War II interrupted his career and he joined the Navy, working with the new technology of radar as a gunnery officer aboard the aircraft carrier Bunker Hill in the Pacific. After the war, he went to work as advertising director of The Duluth Herald and The Duluth News Tribune. He served as publisher of both newspapers from 1952 to 1958, when he moved to St. Paul to take over the company's two newspapers there.

A physically imposing athlete who stood 6 feet 5 inches tall and played squash at Princeton University, where he graduated in 1938, Mr. Ridder was also "a very quiet individual, intelligent, well-read, inquisitive," Mr. Finnegan said. His passions, outside newspapers, were golf and football. He was one of five original owners of the Minnesota Vikings professional football team and served on the executive committee of the United States Golf Association.

In 1969, Mr. Ridder engineered his company's first public stock offering and was the first president and chief executive of the company after it went public. Five years later, he was approached by Lee Hills and Alvah Chapman, top executives at Knight Newspapers, who, according to Mr. Chapman, suggested that the two companies combine forces. Mr. Ridder quickly agreed.

Mr. Ridder became chairman of the combined company in 1979, serving until his retirement in 1982. He remained on the board until 1994.

In addition to his two sons and his brother Daniel, of Los Angeles, Mr. Ridder is survived by his wife, Jane, of San Mateo and Ocean Ridge, Fla.; three daughters, Laura Evans, of Grosse Pointe, Mich., and Robin Lee and Jill Delano Ridder, both of Healdsburg, Calif.; nine grandchildren; and 19 great-grandchildren.

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