PORTLAND, Ore. -- Michael B. Conard, former assistant managing editor of United Press International newspictures and a former photo editor in Moscow, died following a long battle with cancer. He was 48.
Conard had been ill since March 1986 and died Thursday at Portland Adventist Medical Center.
Conard was assistant managing editor of UPI newspictures in New York City when he left photojournalism in 1978 to establish MCC Farms in Sandy, Ore., which produces MCC brand jams and honeys. They are sold at resorts and boutiques throughout the state.
He worked for UPI from 1968 to 1976 as a news photographer in San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, New York and Moscow.
Conard was named UPI photo editor in the Soviet Union in 1970. While there, he photographed Nikolai Bulganin at the first public appearance of the former Soviet premier in several years. Conard also traveled to Egypt to photograph the funeral of President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
His best known photograph, however, was a picture of Sen. Robert Kennedy walking along a beach near Astoria, Ore., with his dog, Freckles, four days before the Oregon primary election of 1968 -- a short time before Kennedy was assassinated.
Conard was born in Long Beach, Calif., Aug. 31, 1939, grew up in California and attended San Francisco State University. He worked as a part-time photographer for UPI in San Francisco and was a packer and guide in the Sierras.
He served in the Army and attended the University of Oregon, where he was photographer for the university's public information service.
While at the university he was asked by UPI to provide photographs of Annette Buchanan, editor of the university's student newspaper who became embroiled in a landmark legal battle when she refused to divulge sources for a story on marijuana use to a grand jury.
By the time the case had ended, Buchanan had been ordered by the Oregon Supreme Court to pay a $300 fine. She eventually married Conard.
Conard is survived by his wife, now a copy editor with The Oregonian, his parents, Norman and Mary Alice Conard of Dryden, Maine, and a sister, Pat Peterson, New Sharon, Maine.
