I was saddened last night to learn of the death of Ron
Palenski. Ron (pictured) was one of the most distinguished, and certainly one
of the best-known, New Zealand print journalists of his generation.
Ron, who was 78, had suffered from cancer for several years and died yesterday in a hospice in Dunedin – the city of his birth, where he moved after his retirement from active journalism and became chief executive of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. He is survived by his wife Kathy and one of their two sons.
Ron came to prominence as a reporter for the New Zealand Press Association during the NZPA’s golden era – that is to say, before the long-established co-operative news agency became a casualty of rivalry between the two Australian-owned companies that came to dominate the New Zealand print media. His colleagues included Bruce Kohn, David Barber, Max Lambert, Paul Cavanagh, Chris Turver and the late Mike Robson and Derek Round – bylines once familiar to New Zealand newspaper readers on stories filed from the foreign cities where NZPA maintained offices.
Ron was best known as a sports writer but like most NZPA correspondents, could handle whatever assignment was thrown at him. His many sports books included The Games, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Rugby, biographies of Graham Mourie and John Walker and, much more recently, Rugby: A New Zealand History (2015) and the aptly titled Brutal (2021), a history of the rugby rivalry between New Zealand and South Africa.
On leaving NZPA in 1984 he moved to the Dominion, where he served as assistant editor. He underwent a late career change after quitting journalism, earning a doctorate in history and writing The Making of New Zealanders, based on his doctoral thesis, in which he examined the origins of New Zealand nationhood. He will be remembered as an “outstanding, talented journalist” (his former colleague Max Lambert’s words) and prolific author.
