Categories: OLD Media Moves

Former Contra Costa biz editor dies at 63

John Leykam, who was the business editor at the Contra Costa Times decades ago, has died at the age of 63 after battling cancer, according to a story in the San Jose Mercury News.

Denis Cuff wrote, “A native New Yorker, Leykam had ties with Catholic schools in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he grew up, that led him to connect with the California Catholic school. He attended Iona Prep School and then Iona College.

“After working as a sports writer in New York, Leykam moved to California in 1972 and worked in editing jobs for the Daily Ledger in Antioch, Concord Transcript and Contra Costa Times.

“He first visited the St. Mary’s campus in 1979 when the Iona alumni association asked him to help make arrangements for a basketball game between the Gaels of Iona and the Gaels of St. Mary’s.

“Lekyam liked the small Moraga campus. He left the Times in 1984 to become St. Mary’s director of public information.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.