2 weeks Ago By Mark Schlinkmann St. Louis Post-dispatch
ST. LOUIS — Fred W. Lindecke, who reported on Missouri state politics for 33 years for the Post-Dispatch before retiring in 1997, is dead.
Lindecke, 92, died March 8 at an assisted living center in Solon, Ohio, in the Cleveland area, where he lived in recent years. For three decades, Lindecke was the newspaper’s Missouri political correspondent. He was a fixture during legislative sessions in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, covering the Missouri General Assembly and state government in general.
He also reported on numerous major election campaigns, national party conventions and other political news. He was known for explaining complicated legislative and political maneuvering in direct, easy-to-understand fashion and for writing quickly. “From an editor’s point of view, he was a dream to work with,” said Richard K.
Weil Jr., a former Post-Dispatch managing editor. Lindecke’s writing, Weil said, “was very clean, very crisp.
He just wanted to tell the story as efficiently as possible.” Weil added that Lindecke was both confident and modest. “If anyone asked him what he did, he said, ‘I just manufacture paragraphs,’” Weil said.
Former Sen. John C. Danforth, a Republican whom Lindecke began covering when Danforth ran for Missouri attorney general in 1968, said Lindecke was known for his accuracy and sense of humor.
“Fred had the ability to make people like to talk to him,” Danforth said. “What you talked about was what came out in the newspaper. He didn’t embellish things.
It was real reporting, it was fair reporting.” Former Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, was first elected in 1986 to the state Senate, a body Lindecke already had been covering for years.
Nixon recalled Lindecke’s detailed knowledge of state government — “he understood all the numbers” — and his fairness. “Fred was the journalistic conscience of the Senate,” Nixon said. Lindecke grew up in south St.
Louis, graduated from Cleveland High School, served in the Army and earned a political science degree at Washington University. After graduation, he worked for United Press International in the Chicago and Milwaukee bureaus, with assignments including the baseball Braves and football Packers. After working on UPI’s news desk in Washington, he joined the Post-Dispatch staff in 1963.
Lindecke displayed his knowledge and dry wit in five plays he wrote from 1978 to 1994 that were performed by the City Players. They included “The Last Word,” which spoofed the newspaper business; “Mistress of State,” about a secretary who anchored the workings of a governor’s office and “Football Follies” on efforts to build a new football stadium downtown. After retiring from the Post-Dispatch, Lindecke was part of a local group called the Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums and was its spokesman.
Among the organization’s efforts was to get St. Louis and St. Louis County voters to enact ordinances requiring public votes before tax dollars could be used on a new pro sports facility.
A private family memorial service will be held in May. Among the survivors are a son, Steven Lindecke of Cleveland; a daughter, Stacy Desai of Pittsburgh; a brother, Robert Lindecke of St. Louis, and five grandchildren.
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