Bob Pisor as a baker
Bob Pisor as a baker
Bob Pisor, who worked as a reporter for the Detroit News and WDIV and as a press secretary for Mayor Coleman A. Young, died Friday on his 80-acre farm in Leland Township after a months-long battle with kidney cancer, The Detroit News reports. He was 77.
“Since he had grown up in Michigan in Ferndale and Pleasant Ridge, he thought this would be a good place to come back to, and The Detroit News was, at the time, the largest afternoon daily paper,” said his wife, Ellen Pisor, told Stephanie Steinberg of the Detroit News. “And he felt it was a wonderful place to be. He loved working for The News, being a reporter, writing. He was a very good writer.”
Pisor met his wife at the College of Wooster in Ohio in 1958. They were married 55 years, according to the News report.
A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Pisor joined the News in 1963 and stayed there until 1974. During part of that tenure, he was a Vietnam War correspondent.
In 1974, he became press secretary for Mayor Young.He eventually returned to journalism, working as a reporter and anchor for WDIV for 11 years.
"I gave up television because I just couldn’t do what I wanted to anymore, “ he told The News in 1996. ". . . Fifteen minutes to prepare a story and then go on the air is simply insufficient time. I didn’t even know people’s names. . . . I loved the people I worked with, but the demands of television were such that you didn’t have any time for reflection. That’s the way television is now, and you either live the life or you change. I decided to change."
He gave up journalism and in 1995 opened Stone House Bread Co. in Leland. At age 67, he sold the business and retired.
His wife hosts a ceremony honoring her husband’s life at their farm at 4 p.m. Aug. 13. All are welcome. Call (231) 256-7420 for directions.
