Bill Woo, one of the best journalists of the past century and a fine man, died yesterday in Palo Alto, California. He was a friend, and — as many of us who’ve talked since yesterday about him would agree — an inspiration. He was a mentor to several generations of journalists.
The newspaper where he made his greatest mark, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, ran this obituary today. The paper also published his final column there: “The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye” — and it ends this way:
Below me, the Meramec flows old and slow and green, coming from so mewhere else, now approaching a bend under high limestone and then going on its way, toward another place that cannot be seen from here. It is a still, peaceful morning, and this is the time. I wish you all the best there is.