SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- C.K. McClatchy, chairman of a family-run company that owns newspapers in California, Alaska and Washington state, collapsed while jogging in a Sacramento park Sunday and died a short time later. He was 62.
McClatchy, always known by the initials that stood for Charles Kenny, began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post in 1953, upon graduating from Stanford University, and five years later went to work as a reporter for one of his family's papers, The Sacramento Bee.
After holding a variety of positions at the paper and with McClatchy Newspapers, he was elected board chairman in 1988 when the family firm went public.
McClatchy Newspapers publishes the Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno Bees in California, the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska and the Tacoma News Tribune and Tri-Cities Herald in Washington. The Anchorage paper won the Pulitzer Prize for public service last month.
The McClatchy family has been a dominant presence in the state's capital virtually since McClatchy's great grandfather, James McClatchy, helped establish The Sacramento Bee in 1857. James McClatchy became an early editor of the paper and later bought it. It remains one of the nation's oldest family-run newspapers.
William Land Park, where McClatchy collapsed, is only a few blocks from a public high school that bears the family name.
McClatchy had returned to Sacramento late last week from a Washington, D.C., convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, of which he was a board member.
He was stricken while jogging at about 12:20 p.m. and was taken by ambulance to the University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead 15 minutes later, the coroner's office said.
The coroner had not determined a cause of death. Sacramento Bee City Editor Michael Flanagan said McClatchy was believed to have died of a heart attack.
McClatchy, a familiar figure in The Sacramento Bee newsroom who personally had given several reporters their starts in the business, was active in establishing editorial policy and presided over daily editorial board meetings at the newspaper.
Considered a coveted endorsement by Democratic candidates, McClatchy had been sought out and courted by presidential contenders for 30 years.
In taking over the company's reins, he succeeded his aunt, the late Eleanor McClatchy, who had been a strong promoter of the performing arts in Sacramento. The Bee continues to sponsor or participate in about 250 community activities yearly.
McClatchy had departed the newspaper business briefly to work as a press secretary for Adlai Stevenson's failed 1956 presidential campaign and to work briefly in 1957 for the ABC television network.
At the time of his death, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize board, the Newspaper Advertising Board of Directors, a trustee of the Washington Journalism Center in Washington, D.C., and a member of the executive committee of the American Press Institute.
He was chief executive officer of McClatchy Newspapers from 1978 through 1987 and had been a director of the company since 1961. The firm was valued at $331 million when it issued public stock for the first time in 1988.
McClatchy Newspapers for a time owned television stations in Fresno and Sacramento and radio stations in Sacramento, Fresno, Modesto and Reno, Nev.
McClatchy was divorced and had three children. He also is survived by two brothers, James of Tiburon, Calif., who is president of McClatchy Newspapers, and Ellery of Palm Beach, Fla.
