Longtime Gazette political writer Ken Sullivan dies

Ken Sullivan, a longtime political writer for The Gazette, died Thursday morning at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. He was 84. The cause of death was multiple organ failure, his family said.

“I’ve watched the sun set from my desk in the House chamber of the Iowa Statehouse, and then, from the same desk, watched it rise as legislators struggled to wind down four months of activity with yet another marathon session,” Sullivan wrote in his Feb. 13, 2000, farewell column.

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Sullivan, who worked for The Gazette for 36-1/2 years before retiring, covered the Legislature and every presidential hopeful who campaigned in Iowa from 1980 through 2000, plus the national party conventions that nominated the eventual nominee.

Terry Branstad, Governor of Iowa from 1983 to 1999 and 2011 to 2017, said he was “very sorry” to learn of Sullivan’s death.

“Ken was a very good reporter, a stickler for accuracy … and very committed to fairness and accuracy,” said Branstad, who was U.S. ambassador to China from 2017 to 2020. “I think he did a great job, and I enjoyed the opportunity to work with him. I know he will be greatly missed.”

In Sullivan’s farewell column, he estimated he had spent 1,500 or so nights — “over four years” — in motel rooms in the 21 years he covered politics for The Gazette.

“Along the way, I’ve tried to share with readers the respect I have developed for people who offer themselves as candidates for public service to a public that’s generally indifferent, if not hostile,” he wrote. “But nothing matches the respect and friendship, almost kinship, developed over 40 years with so many of the dozens of gifted men and women I’ve been allowed to work with and for.”

The Iowa Legislature paid tribute to Sullivan in April 2000, passing resolutions honoring him for the “thoughtful insight and analysis” he provided on local, state and national politics as The Gazette’s chief political writer.

During that in-person presentation at the Legislature, state Sen. Tom Flynn, D-Epworth, said Sullivan always managed to capture the “human side” while spinning a political yarn, while state Sen. Andy McKean, R-Anamosa, praised Sullivan for being independent and objective without being adversarial.

“It’s been a privilege to work here,” Sullivan said in saluting legislators in both chambers.

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‘Quiet, strong’

The years Ron Corbett spent in the Iowa House as a Cedar Rapids representative and then Speaker of the House, coincided with Sullivan’s years reporting on the Statehouse.

Corbett, now vice president of economic development at the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, was elected in 1986 when Sullivan was “a seasoned, professional political reporter and I was a beginner.” As Corbett recalls, Sullivan wrote the 1999 story about Corbett retiring as Speaker of the House to lead the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce.

“Ken was quiet and a strong reporter, very thorough … with good relationships and great longevity and familiarity with the political process,” Corbett said. “People had great respect for Ken, which increased the trust level, so he got stories maybe some other reporters were not able to get.

“It was a different time, when there was more mutual respect for the political process, for those who were elected and those who reported on the process. Today, there seems much more animosity toward the press in the political arena. I don’t think Ken would have liked that.”

James Q. Lynch, now of Elgin, Ill., succeeded Sullivan as The Gazette’s chief political writer, from 2000 to June 2022, when he retired.

“When I joined The Gazette in 1994, I was Ken’s editor on the politics and state government beat. By the time he retired, I had learned enough from him to step into his role,” Lynch said in a Thursday email. “I knew I had big shoes to fill when I succeeded him. Ken knew all the players, and they all knew him. They respected Ken and his work, and it was quickly clear to me they expected the same level of fair, complete coverage.”

42-year journalist

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Sullivan was born and reared in Charles City and started his journalism career in 1958 as news director of KCHA radio in that north-central Iowa city. He was city editor of the Oelwein Daily Register from 1960 to 1963 before joining The Gazette as a reporter on Sept. 2, 1963.

“What a way to earn a living,” Sullivan wrote in his farewell column. “Imagine getting paid to squeeze into the back seat of a Phantom F-4 jet piloted by a member of the Navy’s Blue Angels, for the thrill of a lifetime.” Another thrill, but in a different way: Covering spring flooding in northeast Iowa, while sitting in a small National Guard airplane as it skidded off the runway after a tire blew out.

Sullivan, a longtime parishioner of St. Jude Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, covered visits by Pope John Paul II to Living History Farms in Iowa in October 1979 and the pope’s final visit to the U.S. in January 1999 in St. Louis.

He also dressed as Santa and as an El Kahir Shrine clown to report on those experiences.

But it was politics where Sullivan made an indelible mark in the state’s political history.

Rod Boshart of West Des Moines was a reporter with UPI and would cross paths with Sullivan at political events in the 1980s. “He was always jovial and cracking jokes with other reporters, but very much no nonsense when it came to covering stories or conducting interviews.”

Boshart joined Sullivan (and The Gazette) in reporting on the Capitol in 1989, an eventful, contentious legislative session that included the introduction of riverboat gambling to Iowa.

“I was impressed by the way Ken was regarded by politicians, lobbyists, governors, virtually anyone he covered, because he was so personable and down to earth,” Boshart recalled in a Thursday email. “He was in somewhat of a unique position being both a beat reporter and a political columnist who would come at topics from both an objective perspective and an analytical view that required him formulating opinions for his columns.

“I remember running into a couple from Dubuque who were delegates to the 2004 National Republican Convention in New York City while riding on the subway … and they raved about ‘Sully’s’ outdoor columns and how they loved to read his pieces, like he was an old friend they knew from way back.

“He was kind of a jack of all trades who was comfortable writing about complex issues, budgets, government administration and election coverage but still was able to shift gears and write about hunting, fishing and all manner of outdoor topics in a way that felt close and personal.”

Boshart, who retired from The Gazette in 2021, also provided an example of the steel that underlaid Sullivan’s conviviality.

It came in the early 1990s during the Iowa Trust scandal, which resulted in the loss of more than $71 million in assets by Iowa Trust, much of it public money that had been invested there. Boshart was able to establish that state Sen. Joe Welsh, a Dubuque Democrat who was president of the Iowa Senate and a key player in the Iowa Trust mess, had decided not to seek re-election to the Senate.

“I knew the senator, but I knew Ken had a better rapport with him, so I called Ken. ... Ken contacted him rather than me,” Boshart recalled in an email. “Sen. Walsh said the report was true but that he wanted it reported first by the Dubuque newspaper, which was an afternoon edition while the Gazette would go to print first the next morning. Ken told him we had confirmed the information independently and planned to go to print with or without his comment, so he reluctantly gave Ken a statement. I think that illustrates the sway that Ken had at the Statehouse and the professionalism that he would bring to the situation when I asked him to get involved in a double-bylined story.”

‘A Giant’

Like others, longtime Gazette reporter Dale Kueter of Cedar Rapids recalled Sullivan, a close friend, as “a good reporter and writer, street smart, respected by all those in the Iowa Statehouse.”

“More importantly, he was a great and loving family man,” Kueter said. “He couldn’t resist building things for family and friends in his basement workshop. He was loyal to the people he worked for and with. … He will be greatly missed by The Gazette family.”

The Sullivan family, in a statement provided to The Gazette, recalled their patriarch as “first and foremost, the devoted partner of our mother, Aggie. They were, are, and always will be the guiding star by which all of us measure ourselves as partners, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and friends.

“Dad always led by example and was truly a self-made man. Without a college education, he became a senior editor and influential political voice at The Gazette, one of the most important newspapers in Iowa—and, consequently, the country.”

The family said Sullivan, whose father died when he was young, didn’t realize his family was poor until he found a bag of groceries left anonymously on the family’s front porch one Christmas in Charles City. He worked hard all his life and “found his calling” in journalism, the family said.

“But above all else, it was his pride and love for his four children, their spouses, his grandchildren, and his 13 great-grandchildren that defined him,” the family noted. “He is the roots of our family, and his influence lives on. He would not be comfortable with accolades. But to us, he is a Giant!”