Richard E. Baldwin, 89, longtime reporter and editor at Buffalo newspapers

Aug. 9, 1934 – March 9, 2024

Dick Baldwin became a newspaperman at the age of 12. He not only filled his paper, The Journal, with news from his neighborhood, he also set it up on a miniature printing press in his bedroom, placing rubber type on pages with tweezers, then ran it off on a used mimeograph machine he purchased.

He went on to a career of more than 60 years in newspapers, primarily at the Buffalo Courier-Express and The Buffalo News, where he was the longtime chief of the Niagara Bureau.

Mr. Baldwin died March 9 under hospice care in Attica after a period of declining health. He was 89.

Born in Syracuse, Richard E. Baldwin grew up in suburban Fayetteville, the son of Herbert E. and Doris Schauble Baldwin, and the older of two children. His father was a chemist and a manager at a local steel plant.

At Fayetteville High School, where he played on the baseball team and graduated in 1951, he was editor of the school newspaper and the yearbook, just as his father had been. He also wrote a school news column for the local newspaper.

While earning a bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University, he was a reporter for the Fayetteville Eagle-Bulletin and the Syracuse Post-Standard. In the summer preceding his junior year, he was editor of summer editions of the student newspaper, the Daily Orange.

After graduating with a journalism degree in 1955, he married Mary Elizabeth Quigley, who worked at the Post-Standard, and moved to Oneida, where he worked for the Oneida Dispatch.

After two years, Mr. Baldwin resumed the Army ROTC training he received at Syracuse University and…