Longtime Jonesboro Sun editor and publisher John Troutt Jr. died Thursday night from a lung infection, according to family.
Troutt, 88, started his career at the Sun in 1937 when he was 8 years old delivering newspapers, his son Bob Troutt said. He later ran the paper and helped oversee reporting that made it a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
John Troutt wrote articles for the paper later on in his childhood before attending the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he served as editor of the student newspaper, his son said. He also worked in the Fayetteville bureau of the Fort Smith paper that is now known as the Southwest Times Record.
After working briefly at the Sun after college, Troutt spent several years in the U.S. Army -- where he once watched a nuclear bomb test -- and expected to spend his career in the Army, his son said.
Then he got a call from his father telling him he needed to come home from Fort Hood and work at the family business, the newspaper.
Troutt abided and ended up spending four decades at the Sun as a reporter, editor and eventually the publisher before retiring in 2000, when the Sun was sold to Paxton Media Group of Paducah, Ky.
Roy Ockert, who worked as a part-time sports reporter when he was in college from 1963 to 1965, recalled watching Troutt do "hard-nosed" journalism. He also involved the newspaper in legal battles over obtaining records, Ockert said.
"I think his greatest legacy is that he was a staunch advocate and defender of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act," Ockert said.
John Troutt won many awards at the Jonesboro Sun, Bob Troutt said, but the greatest recognition came when the newspaper was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for its spot news reporting in 1999 for its coverage of the Westside school shooting. The prize committee called the newspaper's reporting "aggressive yet responsible."
The Hartford Courant won that year for its coverage of a different shooting.
Bob Troutt remembers his father's dedication to running the newspaper.
When tornadoes hit Jonesboro one night in 1973, a brick wall on the Troutt home fell on the family car.
"And he knew immediately he had to get back to work," Bob Troutt said.
Bob Troutt, then 14, mounted his motorcycle, let his father hop on the back and drove him to the office, where he stayed until the roads were cleared and he could get out again.
"The newspaper business is 100 percent business," Bob Troutt said. "You are all of the time in it."
Metro on 06/16/2018