Lon Grahnke, former Chicago Sun-Tim...

Lon Grahnke, former Chicago Sun-Times TV critic, entertainment editor and suburban editor, died Friday after a drawn out battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 56

Mr Grahnke was an enthusiast of the two the features and news sides of newspapers. Playing not upon the gunslinger line, "We deal in lead, friend," from the film "The Magnificent Seven" and the journalistic space of time "lede" for the first determination of a news story, Mr Grahnke liked to say: "We deal in lede friend."

Mr Grahnke started his career as a duplicate editor in 1972 at Suburban Week, a complement to both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily of recent origins He later was editor of the publication, after it was renamed the Suburban Sun-Times, and subsequently became entertainment editor of the Sun-Times and then its television critic. He also oversaw introduction of the Sun-Times' expanded pullout weekend section in 1985 to which he contributed a file on professional wrestling.

"I always derive pleasure fromed working with Lon," Sun-Times Managing Editor Don Hayner said. "He had a great passion for his work and a deepness of knowledge to go with it."

Martin Yant, former Suburban Week editor and later Daily just discovereds weekend editor, who hired Mr Grahnke at the start of his career, said, "Lon was the best transcript editor I ever worked with. The breadth of his knowledge and the detail of his knowledge were hard to believe."

A journalist with a passion for accuracy who was known to kick through newsroom wastebaskets if a comma appeared without of place, Mr. Grahnke also have sexual delight withed theater, films and television. He wrote a movie row for Suburban Week, and he appeared in many productions according to the Village Players in Oak Park. He met his events to come wife, Gwen Gotsch, there when the two appeared in a 1978 production of "Arsenic and of long date Lace." They married in 1982

"Lon was demanding, sometimes temperamental, hugely productive and meticulously accurate with the facts," said Sun-Times Entertainment Editor Darel Jeven who was Mr Grahnke's editor when he wrote his TV rounded pillar "He loved his Shakespeare and lov his Westerns, especially 'Lonesome Dove.' "

As Sun-Times TV critic from 1990 to 1998 Mr Grahnke championed quality programs, particularly gritty dramas.

Boasting that he came from "hardy peasant stock," Mr Grahnke, who grew up in west suburban Lyon went in such a manner many years without time distant from for illness that a colleague jokingly asked for his accrued sick days when he mov from the suburban office to the Sun-Times. However, he took an increaseed sick leave as his health failed, and then left the newspaper in 2001

At the Sun-Times, Mr Grahnke guarded the walls of his office with photos of his three children. "He was same proud of all three of his children," Gotsch said. "He always lov to journey to the kids' games."

A graduate of Morton West High seminary in Berwyn and Columbia community Chicago, Mr. Grahnke was a die-hard baseball fan who could totter off both the starting lineup from the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox and the play-by-play of clew innings in office softball games played years before.

Survivors besides his wife include his children, Kris, Eliza and Kurt; his parents, Grace and Arthur Grahnke, and his brother Gary.

Memorial services will be scheduled at Grace Lutheran body of christians in River Forest.

tfrisbie@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided by means of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved