Reg Murphy, who grew up in Gainesville, was a standout multi-sport athlete at Gainesville High, and whose journalism career included stints at newspapers in San Francisco and Baltimore and National Geographic magazine, has died. And along the way he survived a politically motivated kidnapping, as well. Murphy died Sunday in Baltimore at the age of 90.
Murphy was a standout on the football, basketball, and baseball teams at Gainesville High. In 1948, he played third base and outfield on the school’s state championship team. He quarterbacked the Red Elephants’ football team the year before future Masters champion Tommy Aaron took over as the program’s signal-caller.
Murphy began his journalism career while an undergraduate student at Mercer University in the 1950s. In addition to the Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Examiner and National Geographic, Murphy worked at the Macon Telegraph and Atlanta Constitution. It was while serving as editor of the Constitution that he was kidnapped on Feb. 20, 1974, by a man who ranted about “lying, leftist newspapers and Jewish control,” according to the newspaper. The paper, after 49 hours, paid a ransom of $700,000 for his release, which was later recovered, and his abductor was quickly apprehended.
Last year, the Mercer University Center for Collaborative Journalism was named for Murphy “in recognition of his contributions to the journalism profession and his alma mater.”
His full obituary can b found here: Reg Murphy, former Baltimore Sun publisher, dies