George Hesselberg

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Else Karlsen

Longtime Madison reporter and columnist George Hesselberg.

One of the great things about Madison and Dane County that doesn’t get talked about enough is the presence of the irrepressible former Wisconsin State Journal columnist George Hesselberg. At one point when the WSJ reassigned him to a news beat, bumper stickers sprang up that declared FREE GEORGE HESSELBERG. Well, Hesselberg — now retired — is free to write about whatever he wants (as evidenced by his Facebook posts). He’s also collected some of his columns profiling people who didn’t always get noticed yet lead extraordinary lives in a new book, Dead Lines: Slices of Life from the Obit Beat. He’ll be in conversation about it with another local journalism legend, Doug Moe, in this event hosted by Mystery to Me. Note: The event is now taking place in person, at Monroe Street Arts Center; tickets are free but required. The previously announced Crowdcast stream will remain available.

press release: In a lively collection of feature obituaries and related news stories, longtime newspaper reporter George Hesselberg celebrates life, sharing the most fascinating stories that came from decades of covering the obit and public safety beats.

In more than forty years at the Wisconsin State Journal, Hesselberg frequently found himself writing about fatal accidents, crime investigations, and the deaths of the wealthy, famous, or notorious. But he was most drawn to the curious, the unknown, and the unsung--the deaths that normally wouldn't make much of a splash, if any mention at all, in the news columns of a daily paper.

Digging deeper, he uncovered the extraordinary among the ordinary, memorializing the lives of a sword designer, a radio villain, a pioneering female detective, a homeless woman who spoke fluent French, a beloved classroom tarantula, and many more. Their stories are alternately amusing, sad, surprising, and profound. Together they speak to a shared human experience and inspire us to see the people around us with new eyes, valuing the lives while they are still being lived.

A daily newspaper reporter for 42 years, George Hesselberg has chased stories from every angle on every beat in Madison, Wisconsin. Tornadoes? Inept crooks? Missing cats? Peculiarities that defy ordinary fact-finding? Hesselberg has tracked them all for the Wisconsin State Journal as a crime, investigative, feature, political and just general get-out-there-and-cover it reporter and columnist. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Hesselberg speaks and Norwegian. He lived in Oslo for a time, and has worked as a bartender, grave-digger, peanut-brittle salesman, translator, steel roofer, cheesemaker, sign-painter, stage hand and night watchman at the Norwegian telephone company. He grew up in Bangor, Wisconsin, on the La Crosse River. His new book, "Dead Lines: Slices of Life from the Obit Beat," collects many of his stories about people (and a few animals, and one tarantula) whose lives don't usually get noticed. Except by Hesselberg, who wrote their profiles on deadline.