Each time he learned of one of their achievements, he would light up and claim: вЂњShe couldnвЂ™t write her name until she came toВ me.вЂќД«ud was the first to acknowledge that he, too, couldnвЂ™t have written his name without the mentoring of his parents, professors and other journalists. Pagel stayed in touch with many of his students and took greater pleasure in their career successes than his own. Beginning reporting and depth reporting were his favorite classes, but his real love was the students who brought worlds of talent, intelligence, character and what Bud called вЂњfire in the gutвЂќ - just the materials needed to become consummateВ journalists. They returned to Omaha in 1971, where Bud spent the next decade working for the Omaha World-Herald, first as assistant city editor and, then, as a writer for the Magazine of theВ Midlands.ДЄnother major career change came in 1982, when Bud joined the faculty of the University of NebraskaвЂ“LincolnвЂ™s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. The months there were filled with beauty, good times and friendships that becameВ lifelong. The following year, the couple moved to a small farmstead in Ballaghaderreen, Ireland. In 1969, he married Alabama-born Anne Burnett. He sold the Neligh Leader in 1963 and, after short stints at the Norfolk Daily News, the Lincoln Journal and the Omaha World-Herald, he was hired by the Miami Herald as its medicalВ writer. This was the first of three relatedВ careers. PagelвЂ™s first order of business following his discharge was to enroll in Northwestern UniversityвЂ™s Medill School ofВ Journalism.ДЄfter graduating, Bud returned to Neligh to operate the newspaper with his parents. He was fortunate to be stationed in Ulm, Germany, an experience that broadened his world view. Despite the privations of the Great Depression, BudвЂ™s greatest hindrance in those days was his older sister, Shirley although they grew to be the closest of siblings inВ adulthood. For him and his pals, summer meant hitching their homemade campers (that were extended annually to accommodate the yearвЂ™s growth) to bikes and heading for the Elkhorn River. Pagel had an idyllic childhood in an era when small-town kids could run wild. He never lost his pride in or passion for theВ field. The family business took seed early in PagelвЂ™s life as he began helping as a printerвЂ™s devil (apprentice) at the age of 12. Pagel grew up in Neligh, Nebraska, where his parents, Alfred and Ruth Best Pagel, ran the weekly newspaper (which was established by his maternal grandfather in 1885).

Alfred Arthur вЂњBudвЂќ Pagel, 93, emeritus professor of journalism and mass communication, died peacefully at his home on JuneВ 30.

The new story of alfred 4