Richard Meister passed away peacefully on April 10, 2019. Dick had a long and full career as a journalist in San Francisco and was an author primarily reporting and writing about Labor issues, particularly the AFL CIO and UFW. He was born 12/22/1932 and graduated from Stanford U. in 1957 with a BA and MA in journalism where he was a member of Sigma Delta Chi for professional journalism. He served in the US Army until his Honorable Discharge in 1958.
Among his journalistic accomplishments, he was a Reporter for the United Press, Associated Press, San Jose Mercury News, labor editor of SF Chronicle, managing editor of Labor Pulse, free-lance writer for The Nation, Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Review, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Washington Star, SF Bay Guardian, city editor of the Oakland Tribune (1977) and many other newspapers and magazines.
In addition to writing he was a commentator for Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, Los Angeles and Houston on KQED FM, reporter for KQED-TV in San Francisco and instructor of journalism at San Francisco State U. He corresponded with many well-known persons including former Governor "Pat" Brown, his good friend Cesar Chavez and others. He was a co-author of the book "A Long Time Coming" in 1977, a history of farm labor.
Besides being a writer, he was written about. Herb Caen mentioned him in a few of his columns. During the newspaper strike in 1968 Dick was the strikers' communication person who wrote and sent each story from the strikers' perspective as "one correspondent."
Cesar Chavez became a good friend of Dick's after their first conversation when Dick was sent to the fields to report on "some field workers talking about some kind of strike." While reluctant to pursue a story that seemed like small potatoes (or grapes!) he drove down, met Cesar and continued to report about the burgeoning United Farm Workers' union and maintained a lifelong friendship with Cesar until his death in 1993.
His tenure as a commentator on the Newsroom included a discussion of the Teamsters versus the UFW with grape growers back in the 1970s.
He was happily married to Geraldine Smith in 1956, an educator, who predeceased him in 2013.
Dick's articles can be read at his website, "dickmeister.com." He continued writing articles until 2014, dedicated to a free and truthful press.
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