Extracted from The News-Star (Monroe, LA)
Thursday, February 6, 2003

Memorial today honors Dosher, veteran journalist, educator

During his career of more than 50 years, he worked on a number of newspapers and taught journalism at both Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State University.

Staff report

A memorial service is at 2 p.m. today at Kilpatrick Funeral Home in Ruston for Pete Dosher, veteran newspaper writer, sports publicist and journalism educator, who died Tuesday at his home.

Born June 2, 1928, in Manifest, Dosher was a graduate of Jena High School, the Louisiana Tech Department of Journalism and the LSU Graduate School of Journalism.

For more than 50 years, he was actively involved in Louisiana athletics, the newspaper field and journalism education.

After earning All-State honors in basketball at Jena, he lettered in basketball at Louisiana Tech. During his stay at Tech, Dosher was the university's first student sports information director (SID). Following two years of military service in the U.S. Army, he became the permanent SID and an assistant professor of journalism at Tech.

He also worked on newspapers in Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and Fort Smith, Ark., in addition to serving as managing editor of The Jonesville Booster Catahoula News in Jonesville.

While at Tech, his guide was Shakespeare specialist turned football coach Joe “IA” Aillet, who led Tech to it first Golden Age of Athletics.

As Tech's SID, Dosher produced several award-winning sports brochures and publicized such future professional stars as Terry Bradshaw, David Lee, Robert Brunet and George Stone. In addition to teaching core journalism courses, he also advised The Tech Talk newspaper and Lagniappe yearbook.

After nine years at Tech, Dosher, a great admirer of President Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, joined Grambling State University as associate SID and assistant professor of journalism.

He and Glenn Lewis placed their graduates in the late 1960's and 1970's on major newspapers throughout the nation. Some of their graduates took editorial positions on such papers as The Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer and Houston Chronicle while others went into such fields as television, business, politics and banking.

While at Grambling, Dosher also worked closely with GSU SID and publicist Collie Nicholson in promoting the university and its internationally known sports program and marching band. As head of the Journalism Department, he also advised The Gramblinite newspaper and Tiger yearbook. In 1976, his advanced reporting journalism class produced the 75th Anniversary Edition of The Gramblinite, which was named the best specialty publication of that year by a state teachers' association.

After retirement, Dosher returned to GSU to work in the sports area where he devoted many hours to strengthening GSU and Southwestern Athletic Conference records. He remained at Grambling until Coach Eddie Robinson won his 400th football game.

Survivors include his wife Mary Goebel Dosher, two daughters and two sons.