E.K. GAYLORD, 101, PUBLISHER, DIES

June 1, 1974

OKLAHOMA CITY, May 31 (UPI) — Edward K. Gaylord, publisher of The Daily Oklahoman, died last evening, apparently of a heart attack. He was 101 years old.

A funeral service will be held Monday.

Won National Honors

Edward King Gaylord borrowed money in 1902 to buy an interest in a struggling Oklahoma City newspaper and over the years became editor and publisher of the new state's largest daily newspapers. In addition, he operated television and radio stations, a commercial freight truck line and a herd of dairy cattle.

He published The Daily Oklahoman, a morning newspaper, and The Oklahoma City. Times, an evening newspaper, and built the parent company, the Oklahoma Publishing Company, into one of the most powerful and influential organizations in the state.

Under his guidance the two newspapers won national recognition.

Mr. Gaylord also owned five television stations, WKY‐TV in Oklahoma City; WTVT, Tampa, Fla.; KTVT, Dallas‐Fort Worth; KHTV, Houston, and WUHF, Milwaukee. He also operated WKY radio in Oklahoma City.

His properties included The Farmer‐Stockman, a farm journal distributed chiefly in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas; and Mistletoe Express, a trucking service operating in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and other states.

He also had a commercial printing company, an oil distributing concern and other businesses.

Mr. Gaylord served for nine years as a director of The Associated Press and was a member of the American Newspaper Publishers Association for some 60 years.

His was a paternalistic policy toward his staff. One office story was that he once lent an employe $250 to send his son to a special ceremony.

“You can pay the $250 loan at the rate of $5 a week,” he told the employe, and added, “and today I have ordered a $5 weekly raise for you. That should take care of it.”

Mr. Gaylord was born March 5, 1873, on a farm near Muscotah, Kan. Six years later disastrous drought and grasshopper plagues forced the family to move to Denver and then to Grand Junction, Colo.

He worked as a houseman and as a gardener to pay his way through Colorado College and then, with his brother, Lewis, and a bank loan, bought a controlling interest in The Colorado Springs Telegraph for $12,000.

In 1902, five years before Oklahoma became a state, he and two associates bought a 45 per cent interest in The Oklahoman.

Over the years he achieved a reputation by the frequent use of extras—one on the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war and another on a $125‐million Baltimore waterfront fire.

Mr. Gaylord observed his 101st birthday quietly March 5, in contrast to the round of celebrations that had marked his centenary a year before.

At that time he addressed a joint session of the Oklahoma Legislature, and admonished the lawmakers, “You have no business to be less of a man than you can be.”

On his 90th birthday in 1963, he became the first publisher to produce an entire edition with computerized typesetting.

He recently told a meeting of the. Oklahoma Press Association: “Within the next 10 years or less I look for more scientific improvements. There will be no printers as we know them now, but there will be more photographers and reporters.”

His wife of 60 years, the former Inez Kinney, who had been a worker with the Young Women's Christian Association, died Jan. 16.

They had a son, Edward, executive vice president of the publishing company, and two daughters, Mrs. Edith Gaylord Harper and Mrs. Ralph Neely. Nine grandchildren also survive.