Richard Craver

Newsprint ink didn’t really flow through the veins of Jon Witherspoon, the former longtime publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal.

It just seemed that way.

Witherspoon, the last Journal publisher to advance through the newsroom ranks to the publisher’s office, died Monday at age 83.

He served as publisher of the Journal for 13½ years before retiring in May 2007.

His Journal career began long before that, when he was hired as an obituary clerk in 1964 after graduating from Wake Forest College with a degree in physics.

But he was already known at the Journal: He worked as a copy boy while at Wake Forest beginning in 1961.

His various roles over his career included working as a reporter, copy editor, news editor, human-resources director and general manager before becomi

See Full Page