Ralph Long, 81, fixture at Herald American

In more than 40 years in journalism, Ralph Long learned all of the skills an editor needs to master, and he never gave up on a story, former colleagues say.

Mr. Long's level of dedication was on display one night in the early 1970s, when he became ill and had to be rushed from the newsroom to the hospital, said Earl Marchand, who worked with Mr. Long at the Boston Herald American.

"Even as they were taking him out, he was saying, 'Make sure this happens and make sure that happens,' " Marchand said. "He just needed to make sure the edition went out."

Mr. Long, a longtime Boston newspaperman and aide to Mayor Kevin H. White, died of pneumonia in Inverness, Fla., on Aug. 22. He was 81.

Mr. Long's greatest asset was his enthusiasm for journalism, said Marchand, who remembered many nights when the "little guy with a vast store of knowledge" would stay up to see that the paper got out.

Mr. Long's daughter, Isabelle Campanini of Middleborough, said her father's career path began in his childhood home in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, where he read and reread the family's books.

After serving in the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II, Mr. Long attended Syracuse University. He married his high-school sweetheart, Anna Margaret Allen, and the couple had five children. They later divorced.

While a managing editor at The Chicago American newspaper, he met his second wife, Pauline. In 1959, Mr. Long founded the weekly Lincoln News in Maine.

The venture was a risk for the young father, but the gamble paid off. The newspaper has been in circulation now for 48 years.

In 1962, Mr. Long joined the Boston Traveler, an afternoon paper that merged with its morning counterpart, the Boston Herald, in 1967. Alden Poole served as executive news editor at the Herald-Traveler, where Mr. Long became assistant news editor.

"There was nothing phony about him," Poole said. "He was an upbeat, high pressure, dynamic, can-do kind of a guy. And he had high standards. He couldn't stand mediocrity."

Mr. Long and Poole worked side by side until 1972, when the Hearst Corporation bought the paper and it became the Herald American. Mr. Long continued at the new Boston Herald, where Marchand, a reporter at the time, remembered him as the consummate, outspoken news editor.

"Every once in a while you'd see this little flash of temper," Marchand said. "But he was a heck of a news man. He could do everything, from writing, to editing, to headlines."

In 1980, Mr. Long stepped across the press line to become deputy director of communications for White, according to Mr. Long's son, Vincent of Plymouth. In working in the mayor's office for just over two years, Mr. Long enjoyed the experience in the political world and greatly admired the mayor, his son said.

George Regan, White's director of communications, said Mr. Long took to the new position "like a duck in water."

"The work he did for the mayor showed the same enthusiasm he had at the paper," Regan said.

"When he was editor at the Herald, we used to fight like cats and dogs," said Regan, of Regan Communications. "But I had a great respect for him. I thought if I hired him, he might make my life easier. He was meant for it."

In the late 1980s, Mr. Long spent several years as vice president of publishing at New England Life Insurance and took more time to explore his hobbies, including buying and selling antiques. He also refinished and repaired vintage cabinets.

After Mr. Long's wife Pauline died in 1989, he remarried and moved to Florida, said his daughter.

"He was one of those guys who could have been a big shot, but he didn't want to be," his son said. "Even at the paper, he would go downstairs in his short sleeves and talk to the linotypist and the printer. He was a big believer in that."

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Long leaves his wife, Barbara of Lecanto, Fla.; two other sons, Steffon of San Diego and Paul of Bettis, Texas; a stepson, Andrew Tremblay of Washington, D.C.; one other daughter, Dorothy Danca of Plymouth; two stepdaughters, Sarah Tremblay of Weymouth, and Ruthann Tremblay of Quincy; two grandsons; and eight granddaughters.

Services and burial will be held at 1 p.m. on Sept. 8 at Dover-Foxcroft Cemetery in Maine.