William W. (Bill) Brown, a retired U.S. Navy Reserve officer and former co-owner/publisher of the Palisadian-Post and the Chisholm Tribune-Herald (in Minnesota), died March 28 at his home in Lake Forest, California. He was 89. Brown and his twin brother Charles were athletes’regulars on the 1932 undefeated Chisholm High School football team and crowned champions of Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. Brown was also a forward on the 1933 Chisholm basketball team. At Hibbing Junior College, both were named to the conference all-star team in 1934’Bill at an end position and Charley at center. They attended Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, on full football scholarships until opportunity opened to pursue their degrees in journalism at the University of Minnesota by accepting jobs as boys’ workers and basketball and football coaches at Wells Memorial Settlement House in Minneapolis. After graduating in 1938, Brown and his brother returned home to become news editors of the Chisholm newspaper, taking over as publishers after the sudden death of their father in 1940. With the outbreak of World War II, Brown enlisted in the Navy V-7 program, which led to a commission. He commanded subchasers in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, including action in the critical Iwo Jima operation. At the end of the hostilities, the brothers resumed their publishing duties. The Chisholm Tribune-Herald was awarded first place in the weekly division of the 1947 Better Newspaper Contest of the National Editorial Association for its special edition concurrent with the community’s Soldiers Homecoming Celebration. In 1954, following a second term of duty at Navy Pier in Chicago during the Korean crisis, Brown moved with his family from Waukegan, Illinois, to Pacific Palisades. Charley sold the family newspaper for their mother, and the brothers purchased the fledgling Pacific Palisades Post, then in competition with the pioneer Palisadian. Both newspapers were printed ‘out,’ but when the Browns broke ground for creating the community’s first newspaper and job printing plant, and the Post received authorization to publish legal notices, a representative of the Palisadian came to negotiate a sale. The two newspapers were merged as the Palisadian-Post. During their 28 years in the Palisades, the Browns amassed a total of 169 major state and national awards in almost every newspaper category, including numerous general excellence awards and the last Gold Medal awarded by the California State Fair in 1966. In 1973, the Brown brothers were summoned back to the University of Minnesota by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Alumni Association, to receive outstanding journalism alumnus awards ‘for achievements exemplifying the highest traditions of the school.’ The Browns retired in 1982 after the sale of their newspaper, real estate and job printing business to the Small Newspaper Group, headquartered in Kankakee, Illinois. Brown and his first wife, Marie, settled in Vandenberg Village near the U.S. Air Force Base. Brown’s remains will be flown to Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where Marie is entombed. He will receive full military honors on May 10 with a military band, color guard, military pallbearers, bugle ‘Taps’ and 21-gun salute. The ceremony will be attended by his twin brother Charley of Lake Forest; son Paul (wife Annette) of Rancho Mirage, and granddaughters Julia Brown of San Jose and Jeannine Brown of Los Angeles. Brown is also survived by his second wife Marybelle; daughter Charlotte of Pacific Palisades, and son Bill Jr. (wife Mary Jo) of Saddlebrooke, Arizona. Memorials should be addressed to: The Chisholm Community Foundation,104 SW Third Ave., Chisholm, Minnesota 55719.
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