ASHLAND — Burl Osborne, a former publisher of The Dallas Morning News and a newspaper giant with ties to The Independent and the area, died late Wednesday in UT Southwestern University Hospital in Dallas. He was 75.

His death was not related to his kidney transplants, his family said.

During his 21 years at the Morning News, the newspaper grew in stature and put together a string of Pulitzer Prizes.

Osborne was making news himself early in life. In 1966, when he was 29, he became the third recipient of an experimental transplant anti-rejection technique. He was one of the few people in the world to undergo two kidney transplants.

Osborne was born in Jenkins, a coal town near the Virginia border. His father strung communications lines between mineshafts and the coal-company operation on the surface. When he was 6, Osborne moved with his family to Ashland, where his father became a line supervisor for General Telephone.

Osborne was diagnosed with kidney disease when he was an elementary school student.

The condition was bad enough it could have taken his life at a young age.

On July 27, 1966, Osborne received a kidney from his mother, Juanita Osborne, who died in 2009.

In 1994, doctors recommended Osborne replace the kidney he had received from his mother as a preventive measure. His brother, engineeer David Osborne of Ashland, gave him a kidney and a bone marrow transplant to reduce the need for anti-rejection drugs. Osborne was the first patient to receive both a kidney and bone marrow from a living donor.

In 1997, Osborne received the first Organ Transplant Pioneer Hero Award from the International Society of Artificial Internal Organs. The award has since been renamed in his honor.

Morning News start

Osborne joined the Morning News in October 1980 as executive editor following 20 years at The Associated Press, where he was managing editor of the AP’s worldwide news operations.

He was named president and editor of the Morning News in 1985 and became publisher in 1991. It was under Osborne’s leadership the Morning News grew into one of the best newspapers in America.

Osborne started his career as a reporter at the Ashland Daily Independent in 1958 when he was in college. It was the first of many steps on his way to becoming one of the most respected newspaper executives in the industry.

Osborne, who lived in Dallas, was a member of the AP board for 14 years, the last five as chairman, from 2002 to 2007. He worked for 25 years at Belo, serving as editor and publisher of the Dallas Morning News, president of Belo’s publishing division and as a member of its board. He retired as publisher emeritus of the Morning News in 2007.

Before joining Belo, Osborne worked for the AP for two decades, starting as a correspondent in Bluefield, W.Va., and rising eventually to managing editor, a post he had from 1977 to 1980.

Remembering Burl

Colleagues and peers were saddened by the news of his death.

Tom Stultz, another former ADI reporter who went on to become a superstar in the industry and is now the managing director of the Capital & Media Division of JMI Sports LLC, remembered Osborne’s legacy.

“Burl Osborne was a giant in the newspaper business, but he was never affected by his success,” Stultz said. “He remained a humble man who never forgot his roots and was always ready to help others who shared his dreams and aspirations.

“Over the years the ADI has groomed some great talent, but he was head of the class, in my opinion.”

Tim Kelly, the retired editor and publisher of the Lexington Herald-Leader who cut his reporting reporting teeth as a sportswriter at the ADI, saw Osborne as a role model, a rival and a treasured friend.

“Anyone who ever underestimated Burl Osborne did so at his or her own risk,” Kelly said. “Burl was a battler in life, due to his kidney issues, and also in his long and distinguished career.

“Burl was one of my early role models as a fellow Ashlander and journalist. He was a polite but fierce competitor when we were on opposite sides of the Dallas newspaper war and eventually became someone I saw as a friend and valued sounding board.

“I am greatly saddened to hear of his death.”

Kelly had a leadership position at the Dallas Times Herald during the same time Osborne was leading the Morning News. The News had more circulation in Texas, but The Herald sold more newspapers in Dallas County. Osborne led the Morning News to one of the greatest newspaper battles of the late 20th century. Belo purchased the Herald’s assets in December 1991.

During Osborne’s tenure, the circulation of The Morning News more than doubled and the newspaper received six Pulitzer Prizes.

Power of the press

Even as a young writer, Osborne understood the power of the press, as told by this story on the Dallas Morning News website.

Osborne was working for the AP in a one-man bureau in Bluefield. He covered a story of a hound dog trapped in a mineshaft buried under half a mountain. The dog had fallen into the open shaft and was being kept alive by its owner, a boy who threw food to the trapped animal.

The dog had been in the shaft for a month when Osborne began covering the story for the AP in November 1961. The young reporter had the nation’s attention with his riveting stories on the hound’s situation.

As Christmas drew close, Osborne was told he wasn’t leaving Bluefield until the dog was out of the shaft.

“That suggested the next day’s lead on how to get the dog out,” Osborne recalled in 1980 to the Morning News.

The next morning, six or eight bulldozers were moving the mountain to get to the hound — the solution Osborne suggested.

“It was then that I began to understand the power of the newspaper story,” he told the Morning News.

Soon after Osborne took over as bureau chief in Louisville, a mine explosion killed 38 in Hyden. Osborne chartered a plane and flew to the scene, and spent several days reporting in vivid detail. After filing his main story the first night, former colleague Terry Hunt said he relayed a request from editors in New York for a feature. “Give me a minute to look at my notebook,” he said Osborne answered, before dictating a poignant story of the miners’ families.

Osborne received the National Press Foundation George David Beveridge, Jr., Award for Editor of the Year in 1992, and was awarded the Pat Taggart Texas Newspaper Leader of the Year Award in 1993.

Osborne was a journalism graduate of Marshall University and had a master's degree in business administration from Long Island University in New York. He received distinguished alumnus awards from both institutions. He was also a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.

In 1990, he was named Newspaper Executive of the Year by Adweek magazine. He was named a Fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists and received a Millennium Award from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, both in 1999. He was named “Father of the Year” in 1996 by the Luncheon Committee of Dallas.

Osborne is in the Journalism Hall of Fame at Marshall and the University of Kentucky.

George Wolfford of Ashland began working as a reporter at the ADI the same time as Osborne in 1958. Osborne was raised in Boyd County and graduated from Boyd County High School. He worked at the newspaper a short time before taking a reporting job with a Huntington television station at the No. 3 station in a then three-station market.

“I remember him and I’ve always known him personally,” Wolfford said.

During his high school days, Osborne worked as a carhop at the Outpost in Russell, Wolfford said.

In addition to his wife, Betty, and his brother, Osborne is survived by a son, Jonathan Osborne of Austin, Texas, and a grandson, Harry.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648. The AP and the Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.