John O. Jarstad, Sportscaster And Politician

BREMERTON - John O. Jarstad, a former sports announcer, newspaper and broadcast journalist, and Tacoma city councilman and deputy mayor, has died at age 78.

Mr. Jarstad died Saturday (June 12) at an Auburn rehabilitation facility where he been for three weeks.

His son, John S. Jarstad, attributed the death to a number of ailments, including heart failure and diabetes.

Mr. Jarstad was born and raised in Bremerton, and after graduating from Washington State University he returned to his hometown, where he was sports editor of the Bremerton Sun and the radio voice of the Bremerton Bluejackets, a minor-league baseball team, in the late 1940s.

He later broadcast live baseball on television for the Pacific Coast League's Seattle Rainiers, and hosted an outdoors show on KOMO-TV for 13 years in the 1950s and '60s.

"He really pioneered the television report as we know it today," the younger Jarstad said.

"He would report on the game, film the last two minutes of some event. He would bring his own camera, edit the film himself, rush back to the station and put it on the last two minutes of the newscast.

"It was pretty exciting."

Mr. Jarstad served on the Tacoma City Council in the late 1960s and early 1970s, served a term as the city's deputy mayor and made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1970. He was chairman of the Pierce County bicentennial celebration in 1976.

Mr. Jarstad and his wife, Barbara, lived on Tapps Island, Pierce County, for the past five years. He also is survived by his son, three daughters, a brother and two sisters.

The family had not completed funeral arrangements.