Ruth, John, Christa, Greg,
Hard to believe a year has passed since we lost Bill. Still fondly remember his long pauses while swimming laps. The catching up with friends always was more important than counting the presidents (in order). Love to all of you.
Diane & Hunt Allard

Dear Ruth and all the Neikirks,
As a Splash Girl, I am honored and indebted to Bill for crafting such a wonderful and fitting name that has so perfectly united us! The Splash Girl family lives on and perpetuates Bill's fun-loving spirit!! I can see him swimming laps and making everyone's morning brighter as if it were yesterday.
Much love,
Brenda Wilson, Splash Girl

Dearest Ruth and all the Neikirks,
I am thinking of all of you today with love as I reflect on Bill and his gifts and depth, humor, and questions of life. How much he contributed to this world! His contributions are eternal and I send each of you comfort on this anniversary of his passing. Much love, Kathleen

Ann Marie L.
Yes, Bill was a gifted journalist. But he was a rare human being, endlessly kind and generous. I will forever be grateful for his support and wisdom.

Jeff Z.
Bill was so incredibly generous to new reporters. We learned from his wisdom of Washington and his pure kindness.

In honor of my former colleague at the Tribune Washington bureau. In addition to being a upstanding person, Bill was a rock steady journalist.
Pete S.

I used to think COVID-19 happened but to others. Then it hit my family.

BY MARK NEIKIRK 
SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 11:14 AM


I was with friends recently, testing the waters of social distancing outside the home, when one asked, “Does any of you know anyone with COVID?”
The subtext was clear: This whole thing is overblown. Well, I told them, I know someone who died, someone whose parents nearly died while on ventilators, and someone my age (60s) who had just tested positive. 
Truth be told, though, the pandemic still felt distant. It was happening but to others. 
No more. William Robert Neikirk, a pioneering journalist in the field of economics reporting, died on the afternoon of Aug. 27. The cause of death was complications from his long and difficult struggle with dementia coupled with complications from COVID 19. Bill was my uncle.
His career started here, at this newspaper as a sports stringer while attending the University of Kentucky. Those early years produced a favorite assignment – covering a high school basketball game at which Herky Rupp was on the bench. His father, the legendary Adolph, was in the stands and alternated between clinical analysis of the game and paternal frustration: “The thought came to me that the tables were being turned on this famous coach who had many times kept youngsters sitting anxiously on the bench while their fathers watched from the stands. Eventually, though, Herky was sent into the game. Adolph beamed.
Bill wrote that recollection in 1985 when he was with the Chicago Tribune. It was a respite from covering world trade and monetary policy, but it was also typical of his approach to reporting: find the odd angle, find the humanity. His intent was to make economics relatable to all readers. He once took a guided tour of the Fort Knox vault so he could report on whether the gold was still there, gleaming and real. People were wondering. Maybe the government was lying. He assured them otherwise.
After college, Bill polished his skills at the Associated Press, first in Frankfort in the early 1960s. He moved to Louisiana, where he covered Pistol Pete Maravich one day, the Civil Rights Movement the next. He broke into national affairs in 1968 when AP put him on the team covering the Republican convention that nominated Nixon. There is a great old photo in the AP archives of Bill on press row, phone cradled to his ear and fingers on the typewriter – the very image of the term “working journalist.” Within a year, he moved to AP’s Washington bureau. 
Bill drew on his boyhood when he covered economic affairs. Our family is from Irvine in Estill County, a railroad town at the mountains’ edge. He and most of his 11 siblings left for the military or college or marriage but returned for family gatherings at my grandmother’s house on Kirkland Avenue, a half block from the general store with its candy counter and its dirt path to the Kentucky River and a rope swing. Those made the house something of child’s paradise, though the generation before us had known real hardship there. The family farm was lost during the Great Depression. His family’s story was never out of mind when Bill wrote about the forces that make an economy tick. Or fail.
The same great heart that made Bill a better journalist made him a spectacular uncle. In March 2002, his older brother, my father, Marshall Neikirk, died of cancer. Less than four months later, I was in the hospital for cancer surgery. Bill and his wife, Ruth, sat with me through the night. When I woke periodically from the post-surgery fog, I would hear them chatting away in the most cheerful fashion. What a gift they gave me by their presence.
Bill’s own cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, came a few years later. With his treatment successful, he retired from the Trib, and imagined a life of travel, time with grandchildren, editing the church newsletter and finishing his first novel, “The Copperhead Club,” set in DC and in a Kentucky town you might mistake for Irvin
The dementia was gentle at first. Bill was able to finish the novel and come home to Estill County for a book signing. Ruth took names down on Post-it notes, so Bill could transcribe them in each book. To see them together, these two college sweethearts, was to see the very image of the marriage vow. In sickness and in health. 
The end was unkind. Ill herself, Ruth’s could not be with Bill for the last hours. Within a day of his death, she would be in the hospital with COVID-19. Others in their immediate family would test positive, too.
I tell Bill’s story – our family’s story – with the hope that those who want to diminish COVID-19 might pause and listen to families in the pathway of the disease. It is taking something from us. 
I’ve heard it said that many who have died were sick already. I suppose that is true, and a recent Centers for Disease Control report confirmed as much. But what point is being made? Is it that those with underlying health issues are not worthy of our sacrifices, our compassion or our investments in better care? They are. Rest in peace, uncle.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article245497720.html#storylink=cpy

Sending lots of love and prayers to the Niekirk family. We loved Bill. He was a wonderful neighbor and a friend. I think about him every sunny day and miss seeing him sitting in the driveway enjoying the weather. Blessings. The Grattan Family

Ruth, Greg, John, Christa,
   My condolences in the Loss, yet what a privilege to have had time with Bill. 
Yours, with warm embrace,  Joe Kress

My Uncle Bill grew up in Estill County, Ky., and his teachers there recognized in him a talent for storytelling. Those teachers told a boy from deeply rural Kentucky born to a family that lost its farm in the Great Depression that he could grow up to be a writer of consequence. Bill became one of the nation's most highly regarded economics writers on the strength of his talent, his teachers' recognition and encouragement of that talent, and a education at the University of Kentucky in journalism and economics. Talent. Encouragement. An education. Those three things are a powerful combination. Bill and his family have set up a scholarship fund at UK for the next son or daughter of the Kentucky mountains who wants to go to UK and study
journalism. Please consider a gift to the scholarship fund in Bill's memory. On behalf of the Neikirk family, thank you.

Always enjoyed working with Bill who was a great newsman. It was always a professional learning experience for myself in Chicago and other reporters to share a byline with Bill via the Tribune Washington Bureau. God bless and may he rest in peace.

Bill lives forever in our memory as the one who so wisely and cleverly united us as 'Splash Girls'. His presence always brightened the early morning swims at Yorktown and we miss him.

Brenda / Splash Girl

When I was hired at the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau to cover the federal budget and taxes, I became the second economics reporter too. Neikirk was the first. He was, head, shoulders and torso above my paltry knowledge of economics. But he never lorded it over me. Instead, he taught. I learned nearly everything I know about macro economics from him. And lots about life and journalism too. He was a fine writer and coworker, who I was proud to call my friend. Rest easy, old pal.

Bill and Ruth were members of my church for thirteen years and gave so much, loved so much, served so much. Just before Easter, 2011, a young man was discovered behind our outdoor chapel cross in the woods. He had died there the night before. Bill wrote this poem about Easter, this man, the Safe Haven homeless day shelter run by our church, Easter service early outdoors the Hallelujah Chorus, and hope. When he mentions Ken Vandruff coming down to sing, he is referencing a beloved church member who was suffering from heart failure yet sang in his wheel chair to all our amazement. In this poem Bill makes clear the hope he lived with, despite his natural journalistic skepticism, and what Easter gave to him.

Easter 2011 by Bill Neikirk

Amid the rumble beside Route Seven,
Easter came with a sunny heaven,
Even as we all mourned a death,
A homeless man whose final breath,
Came under the stars near the chapel cross,
Among the weeds and dirt and moss,
To us he was a person, real,
Since he'd come by to share a meal,
Free for all if one is able,
At Safe Haven's feeding table,
Where we've learned our lessons well,
Where joy and sadness often swell,
Where we know that hope can gain,
Amid the suffering and the pain,
And so we waved a daisy cross,
With bright and shiny Easter gloss,
And dined upon an Easter table,
And talked with Jack and Bob and Mabel,
We listened to the trumpets play,
A sermon, a prayer for Easter day,
And something Handel wrote just for us,
The soaring Hallelujah Chorus,
Down the aisle we came to sing,
On key or off, we made it ring,
And if that magic was not enough,
Down the aisle came Ken Vandruff,
To add his voice to the growing crowd,
And in the din his voice was loud,
Hope often speaks in such display,
And life fights hard to find a way,
That was our Easter, two thousand eleven,
Amid the rumble beside Route Seven.

My experiences with Bill and Ruth were deep and abiding and his loss is enormous to us all.

I first met Bill and Ruth while serving as the Associate Interim Minister at Rock Spring Congregational UCC in Arlington in 2001. I remember so many things from these first two years (2001-3) at Rock Spring, followed by thirteen more as their pastor at First Christian Church, Falls Church.

I’ll never forget the evening we were having an “Anti-Racism/Pro-reconciliation” workshop at Rock Spring with the anti-racism team I had been trained to work with. He and Ruth listened intently, asked (as always) probing questions, and then shared what they experienced while Bill, a political writer for the AP in 1967, and Ruth teaching school in the deep south experienced. Bill was covering the infamous trial of 18 men charged with conspiracy in the murders of three young civil rights workers — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner outside Philadelphia, Miss. Their testimony was riveting, authentic, and deeply passionate. I knew at that moment that Bill and Ruth would always listen, then question any assumptions, to get to the truth. They would not accept convention, nor run with popular wisdom. I loved this about them. As a trained investigative journalist, he would never just “accept” a statement. It must be verified. This became a common pattern in our beautiful, pastoral relationship that continued, even until his passing.

When I left Rock Spring in 1993 and became the Senior Minister at First Christian, Falls Church, Bill and Ruth joined First Christian and immediately began to bless, give, and contribute to the rich congregational life located there. They created our pictorial directory within a year of arriving and Bill took all the photos while Ruth organized and produced. They cooked for Safe Haven (the churches day shelter for the homeless), contributed clothes and supplies (and got all their friends to), built a multi-media library (Spanish and English) in the fellowship hall so the homeless and working poor could read, learn, and find solace in the space. They helped support The Meeting House Vision, which became our churches transformation into a Community Center. Bill’s search for God found its way to all of us through his poetry, his photographs, his writing. He teamed up with Rock Spring’s Ashley Martinage to write and produce our monthly newsletter (which became a beautiful theological journal, filled with think pieces and in-depth stories). Bill would interview members of the church and locate their gifts, contributions, and uniqueness. He would edit. He would create. He would ponder. The time he and Ashley spent was legion and I prize with affection and awe each and every Newsletter they produced.

Bill was very active with the Gridiron Club in DC and would always test his witty lyrics on me! I loved his caustic humor and was so thrilled to attend the great journalistic/political gathering in 2007 with his family when he served as President of the club. I bought my one and only floor length gown for this evening (which sits in my closet and reminds me of that magical night) hobnobbing with the political elite. He proudly introduced me as “my pastor” to the Vice-President of the United States, as well as other notables. I loved to hear his stories as he would fly with the President all over the world. And when Ruth met Bill Clinton? Well, I will leave her to tell that story!

Bill’s diagnosis of cancer, and long journey through treatment was terrifying yet grace-filled. One day, after a long visit, when the chemotherapy was oppressively dreadful, I massaged Bill’s feet as they were losing feeling from the treatment. There were no more words. I was called late and he had been re-admitted to the hospital. His white blood cell count was down to zero. He almost died… Ruth was miraculous in her devotion…

…and then he didn’t. The strongest, most toxic round of chemotherapy managed to obliterate the cancer and his strong force of life prevailed. I cannot remember a sense of gratitude so profound as when I was able to see him the next day; his smile, his very life a gift from God.

Bill improved, strengthened, and began writing with more passion and drive. Poetry, his novel (he refused to show it to me as he was writing it, waiting for the conclusion, and editing). The church began making some decisions that were difficult for Bill and Ruth. One was cancelling the early worship service and combining both services for a 10:15 single service. They loved the early service, as did others. We created something different that met even earlier (Bill and Ruth could still swim!). A small group of us gathered for five years (it still continues) at 8 am where we were able to share a far more intimate and personal faith. During this time, Bill and Ruth asked deep questions of God and Bill, ever the contrarian, would test me every Sunday. After a bit, though, they became more infrequent and we eventually discovered that Bill was struggling. The Newsletter had ceased its production. Bill (and Ruth) were working feverishly on his novel, and their life was changing. It was not long before Bill was struggling too much to come at all, and their struggle became private. Thank God for their kids, swimming friends and neighbors who cared so beautifully for them both. Ruth was Bill’s protector, shield, and defender during these difficult days. How I admire her love and commitment!

I retired from congregational ministry in 2016 and together (though independently) we re-joined Rock Spring UCC and the amazing ministry team (that now included Ashley). I was able to see Bill while Christmas caroling and one final time just before he contracted Covid. I choose to believe that, despite his illness, he was fully present in heart and soul and as he raised his arm and hand, he pronounced a blessing which will be with me the rest of my life. 

God’s richest blessings be with you, Ruth, John and Lisa, Greg, Christa, Isabella and Matthew as you remember your beloved husband, dad, father-in-law and grandfather I still see you in candlelight singing “Silent Night.” Bill will always be with you.

I will miss Bill's subtle sense of humor, insights, and interest in other people. My life is brighter for having known him. He is missed.

Sending my love to Ruth and the entire family. I enjoyed swimming next to Bill at Yorktown, and we took many chatting breaks. He was a gem.

Amy Allbright
Friend

(originally posted on legacy.com)

I worked with BIll for many years, first as a wire-service rival, later as a Tribune colleague and collaborator. He was simply the best, a first-rate pro, a fine writer and great reporter who could see the long trends in the daily minutiae and make sense for readers of a baffling world. More, he was an eminently decent man, fair in his judgments, with the ethical basis that defines the best of journalism. I was privileged to work with him and to know him as a friend. My deepest condolences go to Ruth and his family.

Richard Longworth
Coworker

(originally posted on legacy.com)

I had the pleasure and privilege to work with Bill during my time at the Tribune. He was a great colleague. Thoughts and best wishes go out to his family.

Howard Finberg
Coworker

(originally posted on legacy.com)

Somewhere I might have the clip where Bill Neikirk gave me a tagline. I was a very green intern in the summer of 1999 at the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush was visiting the Capitol that day. Bill asked me to stakeout Sen. Orrin Hatch who was also seeking the GOP nomination. I got the information and recommended to Bill how much play he should give it in his story. Bill used it but buried it in his story.

The next day, after seeing how his competition had made Hatch's news a much bigger deal along the lines that I had recommended to Bill, he told me that I was right after all. Imagine being a seasoned reporter and telling an intern that you were wrong and they were right.

It's a great lesson in humility and it shows what a remarkable human being Bill Neikirk was. May he rest in peace.

Paul McKibben
Coworker

(originally posted on legacy.com)

I first ran into Bill Neikirk in early 1970. He had just put in eight years as an Associated Press correspondent in Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, and Baton Rouge. And he had come to Washington to cover politics and government. It was a big step.
Since both of us were journalists, we saw each other frequently over the next few years—at press conferences, meetings, and other events. And we quickly became friends. In 1974, Bill moved to the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau, starting a career with the paper that would span another 34 years—first as an economics writer, and then as a White House correspondent, a news editor, an assistant managing editor for financial news, a syndicated columnist, and an independent author.
By any measure, Bill had a rich career. Along with all his work for the Tribune, he wrote two non-fiction books, received eight major journalism awards, and was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. Besides his journalistic accomplishments, he also wrote for fun: He jotted off elegant, often funny poetry, which he gave to his wife. And he hammered out a novel—called The Copperhead Club—that he wrote on the subway.
But Bill’s professional achievements were only part of what made him so well-loved. I’ll always remember him for the kind of person he was—a man of impeccable integrity; naturally modest; generous to others; patient with the people who worked with him; upbeat and positive in the face of adversity; a loving family man, who made time for his wife and children no matter how heavy his workload. He had a delightful, often wry sense of humor. And he was quick to help others whenever he could.
Bill spent his last few years coping with worsening dementia and, ultimately, Covid-19. Yet, his story would be incomplete without paying homage to Ruth. For 59 years of marriage, she and Bill lived out what was a storybook romance. They supported each other in good times and bad. And she was his devoted caretaker in his final years. Her efforts were inspirational—dedicated, unceasing, and always loving, in the face of discouraging odds. All of us who saw her in this role watched with admiration. We know that her love for Bill will continue forever.
Thank you, Ruth. May God bless you.
Art Pine

August 31, 2020
l knew Bill from our student days at the University of Kentucky where he was editor of the college newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel. He went on from there to have an outstanding career in journalism while being a loving husband and father and a loyal friend to his extended family and friends. Bill made a difference in many lives and will be sorely missed. My loving condolences are extended to Ruth Ann and family.
Joy Fogg
Friend