Update on Bob Kotzbauer

Here’'s an update on Robert W. Kotzbauer, former BJ Columbus Bureau chief and editorial writer for four years after that.

Here’'s the report from him:

At the BJ, I was Columbus bureau "chief" 1962-66. I came back to write edits for four years, then shook off Maidenburg's clutches for the Philadelphia Bulletin editorial board, focusing on criminal justice until 1980 when, feeling the titanic sinking, jumped ship to a PR post with the Citizens Crime Commission and starting my own small newsletter publishing business. In 1988 wife Donna
and I pulled up stakes for the Outer Banks where I went on writing and publishing in semi-retirement. We returned to Pennsylvania in 2002, barely escaping native terrorists (tourists).

Of course, I remember Hal Fry, who took over for me on the editorial staff. Also Kenny Cole, Ben James, Al Fitzpatrick, Murray Powers, and Bruce McIntyre among others.

Since leaving the North Carolina shore in 2002, Donna and I are leading the cultured ? life in a retirement community in Cornwall, near Lancaster, PA. amidst the Amish and Quakers. Quiet. Peaceful. Expensive. Enjoy good health at 79. Doing some writing, for the fun of it. (Nothing new there.) Would enjoy hearing from somebody on the pre-1970 staff. Kotz

Blogger Notes: The photo of Kotz is from the back cover a book her wrote called “Elias: Ersatz Prinz..Union Patriot.” It'’s about Union Army Col. Elias Peissner who was born in Bavaria in 1825, married in 1856 in Schenectady, NY and died May 2, 1863 at Chancellorsville, VA. His parents were Jakob Peissner and Katharina Barbara Kotzbauer.

The back cover of the book also has a short biography of Bob:

Robert "Bob" Kotzbauer is a native Pennsylvanian, born in 1925 and raised in DuBois, Clearfield County, by parents of Ger­man ancestry on both sides. His paternal grandparents, immigrants of the 1890s, initially resided in and later frequented Buffalo, NY, where several of their own children, relatives and friends were part of a large German-American community. So, it was not unusual in the family to think of New York State almost as the "homeland." Little talk was ever made of Bavaria, and of course, no one even dreamed of a "Colonel Elias Peissner" of the Civil War.
After serving in the Navy and gaining a degree in Journalism from Penn State, Kotzbauer worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 30 years in Ohio and Pennsylvania before starting a small publishing business, as a backstop to retirement on the North Carolina Outer Banks. He and his wife Donna now reside in Cornwall, Pa., closer to children and grandchildren in southeastern Pennsylvania.
His discovery of contemporary German cousins, not to men­tion the redoubtable Elias, has in his own words "opened a new world to explore via travel and internet. It is like being reborn."
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Address of Bob and Donna is:
205 Bradley, PO Box 125
Cornwall, PA 17016-0125
RKotzbauer@aol.com