Harold Meyers Willard, a retired newspaper editor who had worked for The Washington Post and The Evening Sun, died from complications of diabetes Dec. 24 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson.
The longtime Hereford resident was 72.
Mr. Willard, the son of a banker and a homemaker, was born and raised in Belvidere, Ill.
After graduating from Belvidere High School in 1945, he entered Michigan State University. Drafted into the Army, he served for a year in the Quartermaster Corps in the Aleutian Islands.
In 1950 and 1951, he studied at the University of London, and earned a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1952 from Michigan State.
Interested in journalism since he was a child, he began working for United Press International in Des Moines in 1953, before being assigned to London.
In London, Mr. Willard met his wife, Edith Stockton Mays, who was working at the U.S. Embassy. The couple married in 1953.
In 1956, Mr. Willard went to work as a reporter for the Post. He later became an editor and for seven years edited the newspaper's feature section.
After leaving the Post in 1977, he worked as a part-time copy editor for The Evening Sun and The Aegis. He retired in 1996.
In addition to his newspaper work, Mr. Willard was an adjunct professor of journalism from 1989 to 1992 at Loyola College.
Mr. Willard continued to write freelance articles and enjoyed traveling.
Services are private.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Willard is survived by two sons, Scott Conway Willard and Robin E. A. Willard, both of Hereford; and three grandchildren.
- Frederick N. Rasmussen