A Sept. 20, 2025 Celebration of Life is planned for former Jackson County, Prescott and Coulee editor Matthew Charles Perenchio, who died Sept. 14 of a heart attack at age 46.
An obituary chronicling his life appeared in the Sept. 18 issue of the Pecatonica Valley Leader of Argyle.
Born on Nov. 11, 1978, Perenchio and his family moved to rural Bruce while he was an infant. He graduated from Bruce High School in 1997, attended UW-River Falls in 1997 and graduated with a journalism degree in 2001.
Perenchio won the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s Weekly Newspaper of the Year award multiple times while leading the Prescott Journal, the Coulee News and Jackson County Chronicle. He also won numerous individual awards for his reporting, photography and design. He published a novel in his early 20s and was in the process of writing the second in the series.
He married Cassie Colson, whom he met while at the Chronicle, in 2017.
He also enjoyed video games and Major League Baseball.
Survivors include his wife, Cassie; father, Charles, of Bruce; a sister, as well as other relatives, nieces, nephews and friends.
The Celebration of Life will take place with a brief service to follow from 9-11 a.m. at Blanchard Hall, 204 S. Main St., in Blanchardville, on Saturday, Sept. 20.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials directed to the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, the American Heart Association or the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Online memories may be shared with the family at saetherfuneralservice.com.
