Former St. Paul biz editor dies at 80

Bill Farmer

Bill Farmer, who was a business reporter and a business editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, died Sunday at the age of 80.

Ryan Faircloth of the Pioneer Press writes, “Farmer was hired to the Pioneer Press business team in 1963. He held various positions, including columnist, business editor, travel editor, travel writer and more before leaving the newspaper in 1988.

“In 1976, Farmer worked with cartoonist Jerry Fearing to create the comic strip Rooftop O’Toole, which chronicled a kid who delivered newspapers to the White House.

“He frequently appeared on WCCO radio and founded the World’s Worst Irish Tenor Contest. After leaving the Pioneer Press, he founded and published the MSP Airport News.

“‘He loved talking to people, he loved hearing their stories. He wrote the human interest column for several years — The Paul Light Column. That was his favorite thing of all of the things that he did for the (Pioneer Press),’ said Peggy Farmer, Bill’s wife.”

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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.