Abe came to Tucson from New York in 1929 at the age of seven because his father suffered from asthma. He graduated from Tucson High School in 1939 and worked at the Star while he attended the UA. He edited the school\u2019s paper, the Wildcat. His university education was interrupted by World War II. He was in the infantry and served in Italy, France and Austria. After the war, he attended the Sorbonne in Paris.<\/p>\n
Abe returned to the United States via New York. While there, was offered a job with the Associated Press. He didn\u2019t take it. It just so happened Vic Thornton, then the managing editor of the Star, had an opening and offered Abe a job as sports editor. He went home.<\/p>\n
Abe became a newspaper publisher in 1956 when he and Mildred bought the Arizona Jewish Post<\/em><\/a>. It publishes news of interest to the Jewish community.\u00a0 They sold it nine years later to the Tucson Community Council, which subsequently became the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.<\/p>\n The Chanins started another newspaper, a national sports publication, the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper<\/em>.<\/a> Before they created this paper, there was no source for college baseball news, a subject Abe knew better than most having covered 16 college world series. They sold that paper as well. Both publications survive to this day.<\/p>\n In the mid-1940s, Ricki Rarick, a manager in the advertising department of Tucson Newspapers, asked Abe if the Star sports pages could help kids during the holidays. Abe asked the then editor and publisher of the Star, William R. Mathews who immediately agreed, and the Star Sportsman\u2019s Fund was born. (You can read Abe\u2019s more detailed history of how the fund came to be here<\/a>.) The Sportsman’s Fund charity continues today.<\/p>\n In April of 1971, the Pulitzer family owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em> acquired a second newspaper, The Arizona Daily Star<\/em>. Michael E. Pulitzer, the younger brother of Joseph Pulitzer III and grandson of the great Joseph Pulitzer of the Post-Dispatch and the New <\/em> At the time, the opinion section was in the hands of David F. Brinegar who held the title executive editor and was in charge of both news and editorial, although he left the news operat Abe left the Star in 1975 after 30 years of service. It was not an amicable parting. He was unjustly treated. But Abe turned even that sad event into an opportunity. He went on to teach Journalism at the University of Arizona, served as department chairman for a time and wrote some important books.<\/p>\n The most popular among them is They Fought Like Wildcats<\/em> (1979). It recounts the first 80 years of UA sports, including the stories and legends Pop McKale, Fred Enke and Button Salmon. Abe quotes Pop McKale describing the beginning of the UA-Arizona State rivalry. I quote it here because it\u2019s interesting and involves my uncle Wayne Abe and Mildred’s book, This Land, These Voices<\/em>, (1977) is oral history at its best. The strength of the work is first in the selection of the people. Abe and Mildred conducted interviews with such great names as Barry Goldwater and Mo Udall, and then lesser known, but no less important people such as Maria Urquides and Dorothy Smith Hubbell. Most of those featured in the book have died, but their memories and insights are preserved for posterity. The editing of the narratives is superb.<\/p>\n The Flames of Freedom <\/em>(1990) contains a short biography of John Peter Zenger, the colonial printer who went to jail for publishing an allegedly libelous critique of New York\u2019s oppressive governor and profiles other outstanding journalists. The UA Journalism Department in 1954 named an annual national award in his honor. The book profiles selected winners, including the first Zenger Award winner Palmer Hoyt, editor of the Denver Post, who dared criticize the great red-baiting Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Also profiled are such recipients as Katharine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, and Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles who was killed in 1976 by a car bomb.<\/p>\n Cholent and Chorizo <\/em>(1995) grew out of Abe and Mildred\u2019s work on This Land, These Voices<\/em>. They saw that the stories of Jewish pioneers in the Southwest were not being told. It was not just the Jews in the Southwest, but many of the conversos \u2014 Mexican Catholic families that had Jewish ancestors. Abe proposed the university collect material on Jews in the Southwest. After the proposal was accepted, Abe and Mildred found the funding from Leona G. and David A. Bloom.<\/p>\nYork World<\/em>, moved to Tucson to become the Star’s editor and publisher. After a few weeks, Michael Pulitzer decided to change the editorial page.<\/p>\n
ion to the managing editor, Frank Johnson. The most charitable thing to be said of Brinegar \u2014 to quote Churchill \u2014 was that he was \u201ca modest man with much to be modest about.\u201d Actually, he wasn\u2019t modest. He was a bozo with a seriously exaggerated sense of history. Pulitzer quickly judged that Brinegar was not the right person to carry on the family tradition of a strong editorial page. He gave Abe the job. No one was better suited for it. He created a liberal page that even today its critics call \u201cthe red Star,\u201d but undeservedly so.<\/p>\n
\u00a0 Pitts.\u00a0 McKale told Abe that the rivalry started in the 1930s when the two schools fought over athletes from Glendale. \u201c \u2018We had two of them \u2014\u2019 \u201d said McKale, \u201c \u2018 \u2014 Walt Ruth and Ripper Pitts \u2014 coming to the U. of A. on a Saturday. Tempe heard about it and got them back on Sunday, and I guess we took them out of a dormitory on the same day. On Monday Tempe got them back.\u201d<\/p>\n