CURRENT:
· Writes a weekly column for the domestic and international editions of USATODAY published on Friday called “Plain Talk,” which also appears in other newspapers.
· Senior advisory chairman of The Freedom Forum

PREVIOUS:
· Former chairman and founder in 1991 of The Freedom Forum; became a trustee in 1965; foundation chairman in 1986; In 1995, he founded the Freedom Forum’s NEWSEUM
· Gannett president and chief operating officer in 1970; president and chief executive in 1973; and chairman, president and chief executive in 1979
· Joined Gannett as general manager of its two Rochester, N.Y., newspapers in 1963. In 1966, he assumed the added role of president of Gannett Florida and started a new newspaper, TODAY, later renamed FLORIDA TODAY.
· In 1960, he was named assistant executive editor of the Detroit Free Press.
· In 1954, he was hired as a reporter on The Miami Herald. Over the next seven years, he was promoted from reporter through many editorial positions to assistant managing editor.
· In 1952, he and a friend launched a statewide weekly tabloid called SoDak Sports. The newspaper failed financially.
· Reporter for Associated Press in Sioux Falls, S.D.
· Started his career as a reporter on a small newspaper in his native South Dakota. At age 11, he took his first job as a newspaper carrier and later as a youth worked in the composing room at the weekly Alpena (S.D.) Journal

MILITARY:
Combat infantryman in World War II & was awarded the Bronze Star.

BOOKS:
“Free Spirit: How You Can Get the Most Out of Life at Any Age” (2000) and his autobiography “Confessions of an S.O.B."

OTHER:
Chairman and president of the Newspaper Association of America. Received many awards in the profit and nonprofit sectors, including the Horatio Alger Award in 1975. He was the first male from the newspaper industry to win Women in Communications’ highest award, the Headliner.

Graduate of University of South Dakota (1950), majored in journalism

PERSONAL:
· Born on March 22, 1924, in Eureka, South Dakota
· First retired Gannett in 1989 at age 65. Retired a second time on June 1, 1997, as chairman of one of the nation’s largest private charitable foundations.
· Married to Dr. Rachel Fornes, a Cocoa Beach, Florida, chiropractor. They have six adopted children: Alexis Rae Fornes-Neuharth, Karina Rae-Fornes-Neuharth, Ariana Fornes-Neuharth, Andre Fornes-Neuharth, Rafaelina Fornes-Neuharth and Aliandro Fornes-Neuharth.
· He also has two children by his first marriage, Dan & Jan.
· He currently resides in Cocoa Beach in a renovated log cabin called Pumpkin Center. He does his writing there in a beachside treehouse that overlooks the Kennedy Space Center launch pads.

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