Donald Bertrand, Daily News veteran with 50-year career as reporter and editor, dies at 82

Daily News veteran Donald Bertrand, who started out loading the paper onto delivery trucks to launch a 48-year career at the city tabloid as a reporter and editor, died in his New Jersey home this past Wednesday.

The 82-year-old native of the Bronx, a graduate of Cardinal Hayes High School and Iona College, came to The News in 1960 at age 19, working nights while pursuing his degree — and graduating from his loading job to a position as a newsroom copy boy.

Bertrand then rose through the ranks over the ensuing decades, covering City Hall, working as a suburban editor and overseeing The News’ expansion of coverage into Queens in the 1970s to compete with the now-defunct Long Island Press.

“We had a very strong belief that there should be an attachment to the community,” Bertrand said when he retired in 2008.

While the Queens bureau under Bertrand covered many major stories over the years, including the Son of Sam serial murders and a fatal explosion at a Long Island City Chiclets chewing gum factory, family members said the defining moment of his career came with coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and its aftermath.

“They sent me to the Queens morgue,” Bertrand recalled. “Then I was told there would be no one coming there.”

For Bertrand, the “best part” of his many years at The News “has been the people I worked with,” he said when he retired.

“He was a really, really good guy,” recalled former News colleague Jared McAllister.

The devout Catholic was deeply involved in the church, filling a variety of roles across the years. He worked for decades at the Church of St. Leo The Great in Lincroft, N.J., serving as a eucharistic minister and in other capacities.

Bertrand was a dedicated member of the Knights of Columbus and served as the board president for St. John’s Prep in Astoria, Queens.

He was also a longtime supporter of both the New York Mets and New York Jets, with the woodworking enthusiast appearing on a “basement workshop” public-access television show.

The avid reader also joined the Porsche Club of America and was always keeping an eye out for the latest advances in computers and technology.

A funeral Mass was set for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. James Church in Red Bank, N.J., followed by burial at the Fair View Cemetery in Middletown, N.J. He was survived by his wife of 48 years, Marjorie, along with sons Andrew and Matthew, and four grandkids.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks instead for donations to the Barn for the Poor in Middletown, N.J., or the donor’s choice of charities.