Biography: Hugh Baskin Patterson Jr., aged 91, former publisher of the Arkansas Gazette and former chairman of Arkansas Gazette Co., died Monday, May 29, 2006. Patterson was born February 8, 1915, at Cotton Plant, Miss., where his father was in business. The family moved to Russellville and then to Pine Bluff, where Patterson attended public school and was the prize-winning drum major of the Pine Bluff High School band. After high school Patterson held various sales positions in the commercial printing industry before joining the Army Air Corps in 1942. He was commissioned an officer and played a major role in leading the Air Corps training and maintenance depot at Mobile, AL, for the duration of the war. He left the Air Corps with the rank of Major, having won citations for the excellence of the Mobile facility and its use of civilian employees. In 1943 he married the former Louise Heiskell, daughter of Arkansas Gazette editor J.N. Heiskell. Heiskell's son, Carrick White Heiskell, who had been destined to continue the Heiskell family's leadership of the Gazette, had been killed in the war and J.N. Heiskell invited Patterson to join the newspaper. After serving as national advertising director and assistant business manager, Patterson was named publisher in 1948. Patterson worked to modernize the newspaper's business and accounting systems, and developed innovative approaches to newspaper cost accounting that were a model for the industry at the time. He led the Heiskell family's move to buyout non-family partners in the Gazette, placing control in the hands of the families of J.N. Heiskell, his brother, Fred Heiskell, managing editor of the newspaper, and their sister, Elizabeth Heiskell Smith. Patterson, along with J.N. Heiskell and Executive Editor Harry S. Ashmore, led the Gazette in its Pulitzer Prize-winning defense of the rule of law during the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957. The newspaper's editorial stand was unpopular among many Arkansans, but Patterson managed to keep the newspaper in business despite a falloff in advertising and subscriptions. The Gazette was to weather successfully a number of other crises during Patterson's leadership, including a bitter dispute with the Newspaper Guild, a damaging libel suit, a serious fire in the Gazette Building and the sale of stock to outside interests by one of the branches of the Heiskell family. Patterson kept the newspaper profitable, but he and the Heiskell family treated the newspaper as a public service, and much of the profit was reinvested in recruiting and retaining excellent personnel in the news and business departments. In the last years of his career, Patterson led his newspaper against increasing competition from the Arkansas Democrat in what was called by the national press the "newspaper war." Faced with the prospect of costing the Gazette's more than 300 employees their livelihood and in light of his fiduciary responsibility to the various Heiskell family heirs if the newspaper went out of business, Patterson reluctantly decided the newspaper should be sold to an organization with more financial strength. The newspaper was sold in 1986 to the Gannett Corporation and Patterson retired. In 1991, the Gannett group decided to close the Arkansas Gazette - the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River - and sell its name and assets to the Democrat. Patterson served as president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and was on the advisory committee of the Inter-American Press Association. He was active in the American Newspaper Publishers Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the International Newspaper Publishers Association. He was a president of Urban Progress, Inc., of Little Rock and a director and regional chairman for National Citizens Council for Better Schools. He was a founding member of the Southern Committee on Political Ethics. He served on the Little Rock and Metropolitan Planning Commissions and on the board of Metroplan, a Council of Governments, and he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as other civic and charitable organizations. He was a member of the Country Club of Little Rock, the Little Rock Club and the Overseas and National Press Clubs. In 1958, Patterson was a co-recipient of the Freedom Award of Freedom House, and he received the Arkansas Council of the National Conference of Christians and Jews Humanitarian Award in 1987. In that same year, he was named Arkansas journalist of the Year by the journalism department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He was presented an Honorary LLD from the University of Arkansas in 1973. Patterson and Louise Heiskell Patterson divorced in 1987 and Louise Patterson died in 1990. Patterson married Olivia (Lid) Nisbet in 1992. In addition to his wife, Patterson's survivors include his sons Carrick Heiskell Patterson of Little Rock and Ralph Baskin Patterson of Little Rock and Blowing Rock, N.C.; stepson A. Wyckliff Nisbet and stepdaughter Olivia (Livvy) Wyatt; grandsons John Netherland Heiskell Patterson, Hugh Andrew Patterson and Nicholas Gilbert Patterson; granddaughters Julia Taylor, Jane Embry Nisbet, Alexis Nisbet, Rebecca Nisbet, Olivia Wyatt and Mary Wyatt; great-granddaughter Mary Ruth Taylor; nephews Bond Sandoe of lndianapolis and George Whitfield Cook, IV of Ashland, N.H., and niece Kay Rodriquez Sider of Seattle. The family wishes to thank Mr. Patterson's long-time home caregivers, Gantt Kelley and Linda Cahill, for their good-natured help and support. Family members also thank the caring and helpful staff at Hospice Home Care. A memorial funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at Christ Episcopal Church, 5th and Scott St., Little Rock, officiated by The Reverend Larry Benfield. Burial of ashes will follow in Mount Holly Cemetery. Memorials, in lieu of flowers, may be made to Hospice Home Care, 2200 S. Bowman Rd., Little Rock, 72211; or Christ Episcopal Church, 509 Scott St., Little Rock, 72201. Arrangements are by Ruebel Funeral Home, www.ruebelfuneralhome.com.