Merle Lofgren died with his boots on.

He quit journalism only when he fell unconscious near death, handwriting columns and news stories for the McLaughlin, S.D., News-Messenger from his hospital bed. He lapsed into a coma and died Wednesday.

He was 82, and he had been publishing newspapers in small, hard-luck North Dakota and South Dakota towns for a few months short of 60 years.

He was one of the last of the old great newsmen, a printer's devil who started out setting news type with hot lead and gradually, though slowly, making the transition to computer-generated type.

His son, Jackson Lofgren, said his father never missed publishing a paper and only rarely stopped working long enough to take his wife and five children on a family trip. He would leave a "vacation paper" behind with not much news, but enough to fill a few pages.

At one time, Lofgren owned a handful of small-town papers and finally folded his remaining Corson (S.D.) County News and McLaughlin Messenger into the News-Messenger a decade ago in the heart of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

His last run off the Mobridge (S.D.) Tribune press was 1,375 papers, though the family expects the paper will continue in the same old wood-frame building that dates back to the community's early years.

Jackson Lofgren said his father published newspapers through crippling arthritis that allowed him to uncurl only two typing fingers and in the aftermath of his first heart attack in 2005.

"He loved the central Dakota area, where he lived almost his whole life. He loved its people and land," he said.

Larry Atkinson is publisher of the Mobridge Tribune, a longtime friend and colleague of Lofgren's.

He said he expects Lofgren's funeral Monday to be a tribute to a legend, so respected for his intelligence and for keeping the flame of journalism lit, leavened with shouts of laughter.

Stories about him are as colorful as stories and columns he wrote.

Atkinson tells a great one about the time an Internal Revenue Service "suit" showed up at Lofgren's office for a routine audit.

Lofgren said "sure thing," pulled up a trap door to the dungeon dirt basement and shone a flashlight around on his random shoebox filing system.

"Just go on down and help yourself," he told the suit, who peered down and said, "Everything appears to be in order," and left.

Atkinson said Lofgren lived off meager revenue from any legal notices he could publish and subscriptions because there are so few businesses left to advertise. His weekly column was widely read for its personal honesty and grit.

"He was among the last bastion of community newspapers. It was a labor of love," Atkinson said.

Lofgren's standard answer to the greeting "How are you?" was "Salubrious!" Atkinson said.

"Salubrious" is an odd word, defined as promoting a healthy mind or body.

Even if people didn't know what it meant, it still had the interesting sound of quirky intelligence. Just like the man himself.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)