Edwin (Ted) Weegar, Assistant Managing Editor of Times, Dies
Edwin A. (Ted) Weegar, a Los Angeles Times assistant managing editor responsible for many of this newspaper’s recent and past innovations, died of cancer Sunday night at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. He was 65 and had been a Times employee for 33 years.
Weegar was the editor who established The Times’ Opinion section in 1960; worked in liaison with the Washington Post to launch a news service that now has nearly 600 clients around the world; was the founding editor of The Times’ Orange County Edition in 1968, and most recently supervised the research team that brought a state-of-the-art, $10-million electronic editing and writing system into service.
A World War II veteran with both Army and Navy service, Weegar held both a Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge. He was born to a pioneer Covina family and grew up in the Southland, leaving only to study at the University of Missouri and to fight a war.
He held a series of posts on Southern California newspapers before coming to The Times in 1953 and over the years was called on for tasks ranging from the expansion of the Washington Bureau to supervising the dozens of news editors who each night select and place the stories that appear the following morning.
Weegar was known to colleagues as a private man, not given to emotional displays, who often spoke of his hometown as a sacred trust he had inherited. He was a former national president of the Journalism Alumni Assn. of the University of Missouri; a member of journalism committees at both Mt. San Antonio College and La Verne University, and a member of the Southern California Editors/Educators Council.
He is survived by his wife, Diane Kowalski, a son, Donald, and two daughters, Sally and Molly.
Memorial services will be held Friday at 11:30 a.m. in First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, Wylie Chapel. Burial will be private.
In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations be made to the American Cancer Society or City of Hope in Duarte.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
