Robert Berglund, former publisher of the (Loyal) Tribune Record Gleaner and member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame, died on Saturday, Dec. 30. He was 93.
Just weeks before his death, he announced that after spending 56 years in the newspaper industry and writing 2,900 columns, he’d written his last “Over the Back Fence” column.
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Born to Carl G. and Amelia C. (née Treichel) Berglund on May 22, 1930, in Cumberland, he was raised on a farm in the town of Johnstown and graduated in 1948 from Turtle Lake High School. After high school, he worked one year in Minnesota, before becoming employed at the Turtle Lake Times.
He served in the U.S. Army from March 8, 1951, until his honorable discharge on March 7, 1953, attaining the rank of corporal. After returning to Turtle Lake, he married Florence J. Rodrick on Dec. 30, 1956, in Nashua, Iowa.
They purchased the Loyal Tribune and the Spencer Record in 1968, and the Greenwood Gleaner in 1969, merging the three weekly newspapers into the Tribune Record Gleaner, which they operated until selling the business in 1998. Berglund served as WNA president in 1982, and was inducted into the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007.
After selling the newspaper, he continued to write his “Over the Back Fence” column, which he began in 1967.
