Conrad Fink, who taught generations of young journalists at the University of Georgia after a career as a foreign correspondent and executive for The Associated Press, died Saturday in Athens, Ga., at age 80.

The bushy-browed Fink had taught as a journalism professor since 1983 at UGA, where students either feared or revered him for his gruff persona and merciless editing of their class assignments and published news stories.

“He would say, `Each year thousands of students come to the University of Georgia, and I try to save a few,’” said Les Simpson, publisher of the Amarillo Globe-News in Texas and a student of Fink’s in the 1980s. “If somebody ever told you Fink wanted to see you, first of all it would scare you. But second of all you would know you had caught his eye.”

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Conrad Fink, who taught generations of young journalists at the University of Georgia after a career as a foreign correspondent and executive for The Associated Press, died Saturday in Athens, Ga., at age 80.

The bushy-browed Fink had taught as a journalism professor since 1983 at UGA, where students either feared or revered him for his gruff persona and merciless editing of their class assignments and published news stories.

“He would say, `Each year thousands of students come to the University of Georgia, and I try to save a few,’” said Les Simpson, publisher of the Amarillo Globe-News in Texas and a student of Fink’s in the 1980s. “If somebody ever told you Fink wanted to see you, first of all it would scare you. But second of all you would know you had caught his eye.”

[More here]