Retired newspaper editor Robert Drake dies

WATERVILLE – Robert Drake Sr. of Vassalboro, retired editor and assistant general manager of the Morning Sentinel of Waterville, died Friday. He was 92.

Drake began his career in 1936 as a district reporter for the Sentinel’s sister newspaper, the Kennebec Journal of Augusta. He was serving as city editor when he transferred to Waterville in 1946.

After his retirement in 1979, Drake was elected executive secretary of the Maine Press Association, a post he held for six years. He was honored by the MPA as the 1985 Maine Journalist of the Year. The association’s Young Journalist of the Year award bears his name.

A Gardiner native, Drake was attending Boston University when he decided to accept the Kennebec Journal’s job offer rather than continue his studies.

“The country was in a deep depression and the prospect of a weekly paycheck looked awful good,” he said.

The decision proved fortuitous.

“My ultimate goal was to run a small city newsroom and I did just that for 33 years at the Sentinel,” he said.

Survivors include his wife, Germaine, and four children by a previous marriage: Mary Anita Wyman of Manchester; Elizabeth Garand of Bristol, Conn.; Jacqueline Boch of Ipswich, Mass., and Robert Drake Jr. of Scarborough.

A memorial service will be held in Waterville at a date to be announced.