Dean Albert Krenz 1930 - 2017

KRENZ, CARLSON, UTLEY

Posted By: Connie Swearingen- Volunteer (email)
Date: 4/12/2017 at 12:09:58

Sioux City Journal
23 March 2017

SIOUX CITY | Dean Albert Krenz, 86, formerly of Sioux City, died on March 21, 2017, in Bethlehem, Pa.

Calling hours will be 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday at Connell Funeral Home, 245 E. Broad St., in Bethlehem, Pa., followed by a private service and interment.

Dean was born on April 6, 1930, in Wheaton, Minn., the son of Albert Krenz (a first-generation German farmer) and Mabel Carlson (the first-generation daughter of a Swedish farmer), Dean's father died when he was three years old. As a result, Dean, his older brother, Kenneth, and his mother moved into town (Wheaton) from the farm to live with his grandparents, Swan and Algina Carlson. (For health reasons, the Carlsons had just sold their farm, which they had homesteaded back in the 1880s.)

Dean grew up in the small western Minnesota farming town during the depression and World War II, developing early interests in bird hunting and fishing. One of his household responsibilities was to stoke the house coal furnace, a particularly critical task during western Minnesota winters. During his junior year in high school, the owner of the town's weekly newspaper (the Wheaton Gazette) came to Dean's class asking if anyone would be interested in working at the newspaper part-time. Dean volunteered, was interviewed and hired. This was the beginning of his life-long career in the newspaper business.

Upon graduating from high school, Dean became the first in his family to go to college. In 1952, Dean graduated from the University of Minnesota journalism school in Minneapolis, cum laude. Within a month or so of his college graduation, Dean received his draft notice.

Due to his journalistic background, the U.S. Army placed Dean in communications. After basic training, Dean went to communications school learning the fundamentals including becoming a top-rated Morse code operator. Upon his arrival in Seoul, South Korea in 1953, Dean was transferred to a special unit charged with investigating and documenting acts of bravery possibly meriting special recognition, and making appropriate recommendations. Dean was proud that every recommendation his unit formally submitted to the Pentagon was approved.

Shortly after being discharged from the Army, Dean joined a small weekly newspaper in Guthrie Center, Iowa. There, he met Joan Janet Utley, a high school teacher from New Hampton, Iowa who would become his wife on Dec. 31, 1955. Shortly before getting married, Dean accepted a position as editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont., where Dean and Joan started their life together including having their first and only child, Keith, in 1957.

From Kalispell, Dean and family went further west accepting positions at newspapers in Klamath Falls, Ore., and Oregon City, Ore. It was in Oregon that Dean, Joan and Keith experienced their first earthquake, witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis, and lived through the gut-wrenching events of the Kennedy assassination.

In the mid 1960s, Dean and Joan decided to change sides of the country, with Dean first becoming editor of the Chester Times in Chester, Pa., before becoming publisher of the Trentonian in Trenton, N.J. in 1966 at the age of 36. Dean enjoyed the challenge of the east coast newspaper business during which he refined his management skills, ushered in the first computerization wave of newspaper production, and developed his win-win style of union contract negotiating. During his tenure as Trentonian Publisher, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize. In addition, Dean and Joan became active civically in such groups as the Boys Club.

In 1975, Dean and Joan returned to their mid-western roots with Dean accepting the position of publisher of the Sioux City Journal in 1975, which he held until his retirement in 1994. Dean performed his duties as Sioux City Journal publisher, and wrote a weekly opinion column (he had started back in New Jersey in 1966) which he continued well past retirement.

Dean and Joan were made for the Siouxland region, loving its people and culture. Dean's civic involvement included president of the Sioux City Chamber Of Commerce, commodore of River-Cade, and member of the board of directors of St. Luke's Medical Center.

In 1979, Dean and Joan's son Keith married Lyn Kamprad and Dean served as Keith's bestman. During the 1980s, Dean and Joan became grandparents to Lauren Elizabeth (1982), Katherine Amy (1984) and Douglas Dean (1988). Starting in 1985, the family vacationed each summer at Lake Okoboji during which Dean taught the grandkids the basics of summer lake life that usually included at least one trip per vacation to the Spirit Lake Hospital for stitches and/or sprains.

Following his retirement from the Sioux City Journal in 1994, Dean and Joan traveled extensively. Dean kept up in detail with current events so as to insure the quality of his weekly column for the Sioux City Journal. Dean and Joan wintered in Arizona, where he was able to maintain a healthy level of frustration playing golf with other Sioux City snowbirds. In 2014, Dean and Joan decided to move to Bethlehem, Pa. to be close to Keith and Lyn.

Dean Krenz is survived by his wife, Joan; his son, Keith and daughter-in-law, Lyn of Bethlehem; and grandchildren, Lauren Bartell and her husband, William of San Antonio, Texas, Kate Riel and her husband, Jason of Bellingham, Mass., and Douglas Krenz pf Philadelphia.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Regina Academy at St. John the Baptist (4040 Durham Rd., Ottsville, PA 18942) in the name of the Krenz Family Scholarship Fund.