BURNSVILLE, Minn.  — The dean of Minnesota sports columnists, Jim Klobuchar, died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 93. Klobuchar worked as a reporter in Bismarck, North Dakota, and for the Associated Press in Minnesota before joining a predecessor to the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1961. He retired in 1995 after writing 8,400 columns. At the AP on election night in 1960 he wrote the story that John Kennedy had won Minnesota’s electoral votes for the presidency. He covered the wide-ranging experiences of life in Minnesota, ever mindful of his own father’s hard days as an iron-ore miner. Klobuchar was born in Ely, Minnesota, a third-generation Slovak-American. He also wrote travel guides. He held a journalism degree from the University of Minnesota. His full name was James John Klobuchar.

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Klobuchar.1928-2021.