Ex-newspaper exec dies in Dallas at 90

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Paul V. Miner, a longtime reporter, editor and executive at The Kansas City Star, died Tuesday at a Dallas retirement home. He was 90.

He began his 46-year career at the paper as a copy boy and eventually held nearly every top management position at The Star, including chairman of the board and managing editor. As a reporter, he investigated vote fraud in Kansas City under political boss Tom Pendergast.

"He was outstanding," remembered Cruise Palmer, a former Star executive editor and Miner's close friend. "He was a very good copy editor and a good headline writer. Just a consummate newspaper man."

Born in Kansas City in 1911, Miner lived there for most of his life. He joined The Star in 1929 as a copy boy but left shortly thereafter to study journalism at the University of Kansas. While there, he was editor-in-chief and managing editor of The University Daily Kansan.

He began a 10-year stretch reporting for The Star in 1933, before joining the Navy. After World War II, he returned to the paper as assistant city editor, rising to news editor in 1954 and managing editor in 1960.

Eight years later, Miner was named president and chief executive officer of the Kansas City Star Co. His leadership term saw the expansion of The Star's suburban news coverage, the introduction of Star magazine and a revamping of the paper's Sunday edition.

But Miner always considered himself a newsman, rather than a manager.

"Paul's first interest was the news side of the operation," W.W. Baker, a former editor of The Star, once said. "He kept in as close contact as he could with the news content and who was doing what."

C.W. Gusewelle, a columnist for The Star who worked under Miner as a reporter, on Wednesday recalled his love of fine writing.

"He had great respect for careful and aggressive reporting, but he believed that everything that went into the newspaper should be written with grace," Gusewelle said.

Miner last wrote for the newspaper in a July 4, 1976, issue of Star magazine. In that article, he recalled his years digging into the dealings of Pendergast, whom he had always known as "The Boss."

"Our task was simple," he wrote. "Check the precincts, find 'ghost' voters and report what we found ... (the other reporter) and I concluded there were perhaps 60,000 'ghost' pads and phony names on the books. An honest election in Kansas City that year was absolutely impossible, we wrote, and we were absolutely right."

In 1965, he was treasurer of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association. He received a distinguished service award from the University of Kansas and the KU Alumni Association.

Miner is survived by two daughters, seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Jan. 9 in Mission, Kan., a Kansas City suburb.