Longtime Alaska freelance journalist Bob Tkacz has died. He was 61.
Juneau police say they responded to a report of a death at Tkacz’s downtown office Tuesday morning and found his body. The death is not considered suspicious. The body was initially taken to Alaskan Memorial Park Mortuary & Crematory then sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for an autopsy.
Tkacz was a fixture in the state capital press corps for years. His gravelly voice and dogged interviewing style needled a number of Alaska politicians. He had his own subscription news service, “Laws for the SEA,” which covered the commercial fishing and seafood industry. He also wrote for Tim and Mike Bradner’s “Legislative Digest” in recent years. He’d been published in the Alaska Journal of Commerce and once worked for KTOO.
In 1991, Tkacz was stabbed in an apparent mugging in Juneau that was highly publicized. A New York Times story about the incident is one of the top results when you Google his name.
His LinkedIn profile says Tkacz went to Ohio University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Newspaper and Magazine Editing. He lived on a boat in Aurora Harbor, and was a volunteer jazz DJ on KTOO’s sister station, KRNN.
Friends say he has family in Ohio. Services are pending.
Casey Kelly is a reporter at KTOO in Juneau.
