Edward Seaton

Edward Seaton, who died Dec. 26, 2022, at age 79, wouldn’t have wanted to bury the lede. He was, first and foremost, a man who wanted all the facts, wanted them unvarnished; he wanted to face the tough problems head-on, believing in his core that there was always a solution if you got all the facts and worked hard enough to understand them correctly.

So it would be his wish that you know he died sometime in the middle of the night, evidently falling at the foot of his bed, never to rise again. Since the death of his wife Karen 30 months ago, he had lived alone in their home at the top of Delaware Avenue in Manhattan, eating dinner by himself at a small table with nine photos of her facing him.

He had a medical alert necklace, a common-sense arrangement for a guy who didn’t want any more help, wanted to stick to his routines, wanted to remain in his own home. The fact that he never pushed the button — and the fact that there was no evidence of any other trouble — would indicate that he died quickly, and did not suffer in that moment. He would also want to point out that we don’t know that for sure, since he’s the only guy that did the dying, and, as he would assert, he ain’t talkin’.

Edward had a rough last year, catching pneumonia last winter and spending a month in the hospital. COVID put him back in the hospital for a week in the spring, but he made it up to the family vacation spot in Bay Lake, Minnesota, for a couple of weeks in the summer. He had, the year before, made it through open-heart surgery. He also survived throat cancer in the late 1990s and a traumatic brain injury in 2015, after falling backwards on the tennis court in the twice-a-week late-afternoon doubles game he played for 40 years. He was a man of diligence, of routines, and refusal to give in.

Edward had spent Christmas Eve at his home with his son Ned and daughter-in-law Angie, and his grandkids Jake, Hannah and Brett Seaton, and his grandson-in-every-way-but-genetically Kirkland Lambert. He made a fire, and suggested swapping out a couple of CDs in the stereo – bought in the 1970s, still functioning competently — for Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas collections. He did his research on that stereo system — he still had an active subscription to Consumer Reports magazine — bought intelligently, and then kept gizmos forever. He asked for help this winter fixing the tuning knob on a short-wave radio.

Don’t get dazzled by flashing lights and buzzers, he said; technology is just a black box that either makes your life better or it doesn’t. Other common refrains: No need to reinvent the wheel. Don’t build any Taj Mahals. Don’t build monuments. Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.

He knew his health was declining, and he was under no illusions about that. But he truly had a pleasant Christmas Eve, watching kids open presents, opening a few himself. On Christmas Day, he watched “Love Actually,” Jay’s favorite, which he said was OK. He watched “Christmas Vacation” at Ned’s suggestion, which he thought was just dumb. He planned to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life;” it’s not entirely clear if he got around to that one.

Edward was born in Manhattan Feb. 5, 1943, to Richard M. Seaton and Mary Holton Seaton; they lived in a home on Longview Drive. He was the youngest of their four children: Richard H., David and Elizabeth came before him, in that order. They moved to Coffeyville before Edward went to school, so he grew up entirely in that town. His father was the publisher of the Coffeyville Journal. His grandfather, Fay N. Seaton, had bought the Manhattan Mercury in 1915.

He was a natural-born entrepreneur, according to family lore, gathering up trinkets donated by family members and re-selling them to other family members. He held his own church services, passing the plate. He was in 4-H and Boy Scouts, eventually earning his Eagle Scout.

Edward went away to Harvard, following both of his brothers. All three were competitive college swimmers. Edward roomed all four years with David Abramson, a New Yorker who became his best friend. His last trip, in November, was to see David receive an award in New York.

He also developed an interest in Spain, sparked by some early European travels with his parents and by the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of the Franco regime there.

He traveled to Madrid for the summer between his junior and senior years of college so as to study the language and gather information toward a senior thesis he planned to write. It was there that he met Karen Mathisen, a Vassar girl from New York who, by happenstance, lived with the same host family in a home on Calle Alcala.

The fact that there remains, to this day, a coffee cup in his kitchen cabinet imprinted with the name of that street tells you about as much as you need to know. Karen and Edward fell in love, and were married Sept. 4, 1965, three months after Edward’s graduation from Harvard.

Karen died in June, 2020. Edward said half of him was gone after that, but the force of habit and the belief in the value of work kept him busy. He swam routinely this past summer, and walked on a treadmill, as recently as a week before his death.

The doctors had sent him for an echocardiogram, which revealed a narrowed aortic valve — a problem that the surgeons had chosen not to address in his heart surgery a year and a half ago. If that valve was ultimately the cause of his demise, then it would be accurate to say that he died of a broken heart. It was, at least, symbolically true.

Karen and Edward spent their first year of marriage in Quito, Ecuador, on a Fulbright Scholarship Edward had won. That began a lifelong love affair with Latin America, where they traveled together many times.

Edward joined, and eventually led, the Inter American Press Association and its efforts to secure freedom of the press across the Americas. In the largest sense, that effort succeeded, culminating in the signing of the Declaration of Chapultepec, a free-press document signed by nearly every country in the hemisphere. Along the way, he engaged in a public five-hour debate with Fidel Castro — in Spanish. In his later years, he wrote a book about his work in that crusade called “Heroes and Scoundrels.” His last major undertaking was writing the story of Karen’s life, which he completed a few months ago.

Edward had a lifelong love affair also with good food and wine, and became a very good cook. He and Karen turned meals into special occasions. At the family gathering in Minnesota in August, he annually brought in fancy, often stinky, cheeses, which he would describe in great detail for his grandchildren, who came to love the whole production. Granddaughter Hannah hit the nail on the head when asked what she thought of the cheese: “Awful but good.”

He kept detailed spreadsheets — handwritten, of course — detailing when the wines in their basement storeroom would be at their peak.

After Quito, they went to Columbia, Mo., where Edward pursued a master’s degree in journalism. Their first son, Edward (Ned) Merrill Seaton was born there in 1967; Karen always said Edward never quite finished his graduate degree work because he was too fascinated by Ned. Ned eventually succeeded his father as the Mercury’s publisher, inheriting from his dad not only a career but his joy in the written word. Ned also became a decent tennis player, following in his dad’s footsteps. They had titanic ping-pong battles in the basement of their house on College Heights Road that ended with at least one hole punched in a wall. The tennis battles ended once Edward lost to Ned a few times in a row. He always blamed a pre-match martini, but he was mostly joking. Tanqueray, up, with a twist.

They moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where Edward got a reporter’s job with the Courier-Journal. Then, in 1969, he joined the family business as the general manager of The Manhattan Mercury. He became the publisher and editor-in-chief and effectively ran the newspaper for the next 53 years.

His younger son, John David (Jay) Seaton, was born Nov. 20, 1970, in Manhattan. Jay inherited Edward’s cooking prowess, his attention to detail, his sense of adventure and his mechanical aptitude, which was considerable. Edward could tie good knots, he was an excellent fisherman, and he was capable of operating a printing press. Jay also followed in his father’s footsteps, leaving a Kansas City law firm to become publisher of The (Grand Junction, Colo.) Daily Sentinel, the largest newspaper between Denver and Salt Lake.

In 1988, Edward and Karen hosted Beatriz Parias, an Amity Aide teacher from Spain who spent a year at Manhattan High. She became a would-be daughter to them. Edward traveled for two weeks in Spain this fall to visit Beatriz, where, among other places, he revisited Calle Alcala.

Along with his father, his uncle Fred Seaton and then his brother David in Winfield and his cousin Don in Hastings, Neb., Edward built a collection of companies that operated newspapers in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Oklahoma. The family also owned Manhattan Broadcasting, which has expanded to include five stations in the Manhattan region, as well as a broadcasting enterprise in Grand Junction, Colorado. Although they were a collection of affiliated companies, it would not be a stretch to say that Edward was a driving force in all of them. He always read the reports, and had handwritten notes, and would ask the difficult questions.

He was involved in his hometown of Manhattan in several ways, serving as the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, the president of the Rotary Club and the chair of the United Way. He supported Kansas State University in many ways, including leading the fundraising effort to build Bramlage Coliseum. He also created and oversaw the YES Fund, raising millions of dollars to support after-school programs for local kids. Those wishing to make a donation to honor him can send one to the YES Fund, ℅ Greater Manhattan Community Foundation, 555 Poyntz Avenue, Suite 269, P.O. Box 1127, Manhattan, KS 66505-1127.

To attempt to enumerate all his positions and the organizations that he helped would be foolhardy, and it would belabor the point. The point is, as he told Ned and Angie on Christmas Eve, “I just tried to do the right thing.”

At a broader level, he served as the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and he served on the board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes, including a term as its chairman. He read every word of all the entries. He’s in the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame.

He’s survived by Ned and Angie and their kids: Jake, Hannah, Brett, Kirkland, Grant Geyer, Megan Geyer and Adam Geyer; and by Jay and his spouse Ann Groves and their kids: Katherine Seaton, Beck Seaton and Rio Groves, all of Grand Junction, Colo. He was proud of Katherine, a visually impaired young lady who turned 21 Dec. 27, who is attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Among her many original compositions was a hip-hop number, “The Stinky Cheese Rap,” obviously an ode to her grandpa, where the extended dinners often led to conversations that veered from politics to what to do about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The opening line of that song: “Sittin’ round the table with grandpa’s rants…”

Edward left this world only a block from the home where he came into it. But the world he left behind is better than the one he came into, from his hometown to the halls of power across the western hemisphere, to newsrooms across the country and the world. And more than anything, of course, in the hearts and minds of his kids and grandkids.

A celebration of the life of Edward L. Seaton is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 15, 2023, at All Faiths Chapel on the campus of Kansas State University. All are invited.

There will be speakers and music. Memorial contributions in his name can be made to the YES! Fund, a charity he helped establish and run for 30 years. It benefits after-school programs for kids in the Manhattan area.

Gifts and flowers can be sent in care of Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home, 1616 Poyntz Ave., Manhattan, KS 66502.