PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. (AP) - Former Kansas City Star editor and University of Kansas journalism educator Tom Eblen has died. He was 80.
Jean Eblen says her husband died Saturday after a long illness.
Eblen joined the Kansas City Star in 1960 and rose through the ranks, serving as a reporter, copy editor, assistant city editor, city editor and eventually managing editor before serving as editor and general manager of the Fort Scott (Kansas) Tribune.
He later spent more than 15 years as general manager and news adviser to the University of Kansas' student newspaper before retiring in 2001.
Eblen later served as a Kansas Press Association news consultant, serving as that group's president in 1988. He was twice elected to the national board of what now is Associated Press Media Editors.