John Keasler

John Keasler (born 1921) was an American journalist. He was a longtime columnist (30 years) for The Miami News, which folded in 1988.

Keasler was born in 1921, in Plant City - 26 miles east of Tampa, Florida.

Keasler service during World War II in the Philippines. While stationed in the Philippines, he started to write a newsletter. His newsletter got him a job with the Plant City Courier, after which, he had brief stints with with Tampa Tribune and then with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

He then went to work for the San Francisco Call and later moved to worked St. Louis to work for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, becoming one of its top writers. At the Post-Dispatch, in 1956, he co-founded the Catfish Club that eventually became the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis.

Keasler received a job offer from Newsweek, in New York. He turned down the offer because he wanted to stay in Florida and his family said it was too cold in New York.

In January 1959, Keasler took a job at The Miami News and soon became its star writer. He won acclaim and loud praise for his coverage of John F. Kennedy assassination. Shortly after, he was promoted from a feature writer to a columnist. He also covered the 1969 moon landing.

Keasler’s work at The Miami News was widely appreciated for its sharp humor and wit. He was a known prankster and at one point, he brought a camel into the newsroom. He once wanted to send an elevator full of chickens to the fifth floor of the Herald building - not because he hated the Herald, he just thought it would be interesting to see how that city room would handle a lot of chickens.

While at The Miami News, he collaborated with political cartoonist Don Wright - they won two Pulitzer Prizes for their work.

Many of his humorous columns about South Florida life were collected into books. Additionally, Keasler wrote five novels. His satirical novel, "Surrounded on Three Sides," first published in 1958, remains in print.

The Miami News folded in 1988, which also marked the end of Keasler’s journalism career. Distraught, he said:

I feel half numb, like I've got a head full of cold Crisc,…The News was a living thing with a heart and a soul, and it's dying.

John Keasler died of heart failure after an extended fight with leukemia, on September 5, 1995, at a hospital in Plant City, Florida. He was 74. He was survived by three daughters, three sons and eight grandchildren. His wife, Margery Keasler, had died in 1991.

A scholarship to the University of Miami for a student majoring in print journalism, the John and Marjorie Keasler Journalism Scholarship, is given in his memory.