Robert Lee Bradford II, a longtime newspaper publisher in Minnesota and Wisconsin, was born Nov. 4, 1938, in Bertha, Minn., to Robert Lee and Jeanne Milbrath Bradford. His father was publisher of the Verndale Sun and Moose Lake Star Gazette.
After graduating from Moose Lake High School, Robert attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in 1960, he graduated from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. His first job out of college was at the Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald before he returned to Moose Lake to work alongside his father at the Star Gazette.
Robert went on to buy numerous newspapers over the years in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including the New Richmond News and (Grantsburg) Burnett County Sentinel. He was named Publisher of the Year by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association in 1973.
Robert died Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2019, at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. He was 80.
