George Anthan
George Peter Anthan (June 2, 1936 – August 17, 2016) was the Washington Bureau Chief for the Des Moines Register. He is the winner of several awards for outstanding journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Raymond Clapper and National Press Club awards. Anthan also won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship Anthan was born in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1936 and was a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism. An avid bicyclist, Anthan rode his bike between his home in suburban Maryland and his office in the National Press Building for 30 years, logging over 100,000 miles  in all. A close friend, Donald Kaul, lured Anthan back to Iowa each year beginning in 1974 to ride his bicycle across the state in RAGBRAI, now the world's largest bicycle ride, which Kaul and John Karras started in 1973. Anthan states, "My credentials for covering agriculture were established in my first several weeks working for the Des Moines Register when I was assigned to cover the Iowa State Fair. And immediately--which is a treasured assignment, since the book "State Fair" was written by a Des Moines Register reporter--and I immediately identified in the caption some purebred  swine as Herefords. It was the only time in my 40-some-year career at the Des Moines Register that I heard the words, 'Stop the presses.'" George Anthan used an Underwood and then an IBM Selectric II typewriter most of his career. He is survived by his wife Ann Anthan, a Missouri native, lover of dogs, and road racing enthusiast. He died on August 17, 2016 at the age of 80 from cardiac arrest. References. Wendell Cochran