Robert Maynard, Publisher, Powerful Black Journalist

OAKLAND, Calif. - Robert C. Maynard, one of the nation's most powerful and respected black journalists, once offered a glimpse into his reporter's soul, recalling how he often ditched classes to visit the local courthouse.

"It was the real stuff," the high-school dropout said in an interview last November.

The former publisher of The Oakland Tribune died Tuesday of prostate cancer. He was 56.

Mr. Maynard became editor of The Tribune in 1979. He and his wife, Nancy Hicks Maynard, bought the newspaper from the Gannett Co. four years later. Until they sold it last year to the Alameda Newspaper Group, it was the nation's only black-owned major daily newspaper.

"He was an inspiration for many black journalists, not only because he was very, very good, but because he had a vision that often was beyond the rest of us," Akron Beacon Journal publisher John Dotson said yesterday.

Under Robert Maynard's leadership, The Oakland Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism for coverage of the 1989 earthquake. It was also highly praised for its coverage of the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, which destroyed 3,000 homes and burned to within a few feet of the Maynards' house.

"He was able to show that a diverse newsroom certainly was not a newsroom lacking in quality, that diversity could lead to great things like winning a Pulitzer," said Pearl Stewart, editor of The Oakland Tribune.

Robert Maynard was born in New York City, the son of an

immigrant from Barbados. He dropped out of school at 16. More than a decade later, in 1965, he won a prestigious Nieman fellowship to Harvard.

In 1977, the Maynards helped found the Institute for Journalism Education, which trains and promotes minority journalists.

Mr. Maynard's daily journalism career began in 1961 at the York (Pa.) Gazette and Daily, now the York Daily Record. He joined The Washington Post as a reporter in 1967 and had worked his way up to associate editor-ombudsman and editorial writer before leaving for the Tribune in 1979. In the 1980s, he wrote a syndicated column. He served on The Associated Press board of directors from 1985 to 1991.

"Bob Maynard cared passionately about his newspaper, his profession and his country," said Louis Boccardi, Associated Press president and chief executive. "His voice and heart will be missed."

In addition to his wife, survivors include their children Dori, David and Alex.