After more than 56 years in the newspaper industry, Bob Berglund has retired, with the final publication of his column, “Over the Back Fence,” the Tribune Record Gleaner has announced.
Berglund began his newspaper career straight out of high school, when he began as an apprentice at the Turtle Lake Times in 1949. In 1956, after spending time in the U.S. Army and as a postal clerk in Turtle Lake, he married his wife, Florence. The two purchased the Loyal Tribune and the Spencer Record in 1968, and the Greenwood Gleaner in 1969. They then merged the three weekly newspapers into the Tribune Record Gleaner. The couple oversaw the publication of 1,364 issues of the newspaper from October 1968 to January 1995.
Berglund served as WNA president in 1982, and was inducted into the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007.
In 1995, the Berglunds and their editor, Dean Lesar, formed a corporation, TRG, Inc., with the goal of maintaining local ownership of the newspaper. The Berglunds retained majority ownership but ceased involvement in the day-to-day operation of the business. In 1998, Lesar purchased the newspaper and took sole ownership of the publication.
The sale did not end Berglund’s involvement in the newspaper. He continued to write his column for the next 28 years.
