Frank Aukofer

          Frank A. Aukofer, who parlayed an apprenticeship in the printing trade into a 40-year career as an award-winning newspaper reporter in Washington and Milwaukee, has died.

           He passed away peacefully on the morning of July 14 surrounded by friends and family at his residence at Goodwin House in Falls Church, Va. He was 90.

           Along the way, he served as president of the National Press Club in 1978, and first president and chairman, as well as a board member, of the National Press Foundation from 1978 to 2004.

          Earlier, from 1974 to 1976, he was elected and served as secretary and board member of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which oversees the daily press galleries of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He also served on the board of the Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

          While covering news stories for The Milwaukee Journal and its successor, the Journal Sentinel, he nurtured a sideline as a freelance reviewer of motor vehicles. At its peak, his DriveWays review columns reached hundreds of newspapers and websites around the country.

           Aukofer won numerous journalism achievement awards from the National Press Club, Milwaukee Press Club, SPJ and Marquette University in Milwaukee, where he majored in journalism from 1955 to 1960.

          Frank Alexander Aukofer was born on Apr. 6, 1935, in Milwaukee, the oldest of seven children of Herbert A. (Pat) Aukofer and Wanda M. (Kaminski) Aukofer.

           A Roman Catholic, he attended St. John de Nepomuc elementary school and graduated from Messmer High School in 1953. That same year, he started as an apprentice compositor at Wisconsin Cuneo Press, a commercial printer, following in the trade of his father and grandfather, Frank X. Aukofer, both of whom were printing pressmen.

          He originally wanted to also become a pressman but his father talked him out of it, saying that the pressroom environment was unhealthy, with spray in the air to keep printed sheets from sticking together and solvents to clean ink from the presses. So Aukofer opted for typesetting in the composing room. He started at Cuneo Press operating a proof press, which led to the apprenticeship.

          While serving his apprenticeship and becoming a journeyman compositor and Linotype operator, Aukofer used the earnings to attend the Marquette University College of Journalism. Because of full-time work at the printing trade and journalism duties, including as co-editor of the semiweekly Marquette Tribune, he spent five years earning his BA degree. He graduated on June 5, 1960.

          The next day, June 6, Aukofer started as a general assignment reporter on The Milwaukee Journal, taking a $35 week pay cut from his $130 a week wages as a compositor, also at The Journal.

          In 1964, he was assigned to the civil rights beat, where he covered historic stories, including the Selma/Montgomery march in 1965, the assassination in Memphis of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, the Detroit riots in 1967 and the Milwaukee open housing marches in 1967 and 1968.

          In 1966-’67, Aukofer obtained a nine-month Ford Foundation fellowship at Northwestern University, where he studied civil rights and civil liberties in 1966-’67 in the Law and Speech schools. He is the author of a history of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee, City with a Chance (1968).

          After a brief stint as an assistant city editor, The Journal assigned Aukofer to its Washington Bureau in 1970. He spent the next 30 years there until his retirement in 2000. It was a two-person bureau with offices in the National Press Building. His partner was John W. Kole, the bureau chief, a title inherited by Aukofer when Kole retired. Later, Craig Gilbert joined Aukofer in the bureau and eventually succeeded him as bureau chief.

          His coverage included Wisconsin stories and elected officials, as well as many historic Washington events, including the impeachment proceedings against Presidents Richard M. Nixon and William J. Clinton. From 1972 through 1996, Aukofer also covered national political conventions.

          Aukofer traveled throughout Central America, Panama, Colombia and Cuba for individual stories and series of stories. He was assigned to the U.S. Defense Department National Media Pool and was a member of the first press pool allowed into Saudi Arabia to cover Desert Shield in August, 1990. He returned in January, 1991, to cover Desert Storm, the Gulf War.

          That experience led to a nine-month Freedom Forum fellowship in 1994-'95 at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where Aukofer co-authored America's Team: The Odd Couple, a study of the relationship between the military and the news media.

          His co-author was retired Vice Admiral William P. Lawrence, who, as a Navy F-4 Phantom squadron leader, was shot down over Hanoi in the Vietnam War and spent six years as a POW in the infamous Hua Lo (Hanoi Hilton) prison, where he was the senior officer.

         Fellow prisoners included John McCain, later a senator and presidential candidate, and James Stockdale, a vice presidential running mate of Ross Perot, who ran as an independent candidate for president in 1992 and 1996. Lawrence later served as commander of the Third Fleet and superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy.

          As a high school student, Aukofer joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve in 1952 and served as an enlisted airman until his honorable discharge as an Airman First Class in 1960. Assigned to public affairs, he founded and edited the Flying Badger, an unofficial newspaper for the Reserve 440th Troop Carrier Wing at Gen. Mitchell Field.

          After moving to Washington, Aukofer was elected president of the National Press Club for 1978. He also served as president and chairman of the National Press Foundation from 1979 through 1984, and served on the foundation's board of directors for a total of 27 years.

          In 1987-'88, he was president of the Washington Automotive Press Association. In 2015, WAPA awarded Aukofer its Golden Quill Lifetime Achievement Award for his overlapping 40 years as a mainstream reporter and 40 years as an automotive journalist.

          Aukofer was elected for 1975-'76 as a member and secretary of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, an independent organization of newspaper and wire service reporters who oversee the Senate and House daily press galleries in the U.S. Capitol.

          Aukofer also has been a member since 1957 of the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi) and served on the board of the Washington professional chapter. He later also served on the board of Haven of Northern Virginia, an all-volunteer organization that provides counseling services and emotional support to the grieving, where his wife served for many years as the deputy director.

          As a freelance sideline, Aukofer wrote a weekly automobile review column, DriveWays, which from 1975-2024 was distributed to newspapers and websites in the U.S. and abroad.

         In addition to City with a Chance and America’s Team: The Odd Couple, Aukofer is the author of Never a Slow Day: Adventures of a 20th Century Newspaper Reporter, an autobiography/memoir, published by the Marquette University Press in 2009.

          Aukofer and his wife, Sharlene, were married on Aug. 6, 1960, at the Church of the Gesu on the Marquette campus. He is survived by his wife, four children—Juli (Enrique), Matt (Jill), Becky and Joe (Joanne)—10 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

         A Catholic funeral mass and reception will be held at Goodwin House Bailey’s Crossroads, 3440 S. Jefferson, St., Falls Church, Va., on July 22 at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Frank’s name to the Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship through the National Press Foundation.