On July 29, Jerry Ceppos passed away at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the age of 75 after battling sepsis. Readers of Pen World knew Jerry as a regular contributor to this magazine, but Jerry’s work with Pen World was only the final chapter of a storied career in journalism. Jerome Merle Ceppos was born in Washington, D.C. on October 14, 1946 and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. His mother was a homemaker and later a real estate agent, and his father owned a Jewish delicatessen and possessed a bachelor’s degree in journalism. His uncle, Sidney Epstein, was a respected journalist, editor, and publisher. Jerry edited his Northwood High School newspaper and attended the University of Maryland, where he was also the newspaper editor and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1969.
Jerry spent much of his career as an editor at Knight Ridder, then the second-largest newspaper chain in the United States. He went on to become an editor at the Miami Herald and then joined the staff of the San Jose Mercury News in joined the staff of the San Jose Mercury News in 1981, acting as its executive editor from 1995 to 1999. Fellow journalists credit Jerry with turning the Mercury News into one of the top 10 newspapers in the country. In 1999 he moved to Knight Ridder's corporate staff as Vice President for News and served in that capacity until he left the company in 2005.
Jerry then turned to teaching, serving as dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada in Reno. From 2011 to 2018, he was dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, where he continued to teach in an emeritus status.
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