Frank Kane, former Club governor and 48-year member, dies at 92

Frank R. Kane, a retired Washington correspondent for The Toledo Blade and a 48-year member of the NPC, died Jan. 5 at a retirement community in Midlothian, Va., where he had lived for the last four years. He was 92.

His career at The Blade spanned coverage of Toledo city hall, the Ohio statehouse and the nation's capital. He retired in 1984 after more than a decade in the Washington bureau and a final four years working in Toledo as national news editor and assistant managing editor for features.

He was city editor of The Blade before moving to Arlington, Va., to become the newspaper's Washington correspondent in 1969. He covered the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations, including trips to China and the Soviet Union, and national GOP and Democrat presidential nominating conventions from 1960 to 1980.

"He was a very solid reporter and a very solid newspaperman," said retired Blade managing editor Joe O'Conor.

He returned to Alexandria in 1984 and worked for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the House Budget Committee under Rep. Delbert Latta (R-Ohio), and the U.S. Labor Department.

Frank was a former treasurer and member of the National Press Club's Board of Governors and head of its Book and Author Committee. Until 2011 he covered Club events for The Wire. He and his wife Mary Ellen, whom he married in 1950 while working for The Ann Arbor News, were long-time supporters of the National Press Club's Journalism Institute. She died July 17, 201

Frank covered former Toledo Mayor Michael DiSalle during his 1959-63 term as governor of Ohio. DiSalle, who joined a Washington law firm, hosted an annual luncheon for Ohio reporters and a lavish going away party for Frank at DiSalle's Watergate Hotel apartment when Frank left Washington in 1980 for his four-year return to Toledo.

Club member Rick Thomas recalled that "after DiSalle's death in 1981, 'the Ohio gang' moved the annual DiSalle luncheon to the Press Club" at which Frank was a regular attendee.

Thomas, editor of Thomas Voting Reports, who worked alongside Frank on the Ohio congressional beat, said: "Frank held top positions with the Blade in Toledo, Columbus and Washington, but beyond his skills as an old-school newspaperman, he stood out to his friends and those he covered as a genuinely nice guy and kind, thoughtful person, always worth spending time with on or off the beat."

Frank was born in Chicago and after graduating from high school served as an engineer aboard a Navy minesweeper during World War II. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1948 and became a passionate life-long Wolverine football fan. He received a degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University in 1952 and was hired that year by The Blade as its labor reporter.

Survivors include four daughters, eight grandchildren and a great-grandson. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Feb. 10 in the Woody Funeral Home Huguenot Chapel in Midlothian, Va.