What John Joseph Conard Sr. dreamed, he lived.

He always wanted to own a small Kansas newspaper. He ended up with three.

As a man who valued higher education, he wanted to experience it abroad, so, with the help of a scholarship, he made his way to Paris to study international law.

“John was my visionary,” said Virginia Conard, Conard Sr.’s wife of 60 years. “He had dreams and goals.”

She accompanied him on his journey pursuing journalism, politics and education from Lawrence, where they met at Kansas University, to Paris, Washington, D.C., and back to their home state where the couple started three weekly newspapers.

“Dad took a 70 percent pay cut to follow his dream, which was to run a tiny newspaper,” John Conard Jr. said. He said his family have hundreds of photos of Conard Sr. reading the newspaper.

“He just loved it so much,” he said.

His love for journalism began in fourth grade, Virginia Conard said.

“His teacher told him, ‘John, you can write, you ought to become a journalist.’ That’s where the seed was planted,” she said.

He pursued journalism at KU beginning in 1939 alongside his friend Glee Smith. Conard became editor of The University Daily Kansan, and Smith was the managing editor at the time. From then on, the two friends who shared a passion for public service also began to share parallel careers in various positions.

Smith said Conard was a man of integrity who was highly regarded by his contemporaries.

Conard Jr. said his father had friends in every state.

“He’s a pretty amazing guy,” he said.

“He really loved Kansas; his goal was to make it a better state,” said Conard Jr.

Between 1956 and 1970 in Greensburg, he planted thousands of trees by himself.

“His heart was broken when he saw most of those trees were destroyed and his home was destroyed,” Conard Jr. said of the May tornado in Greensburg that wiped out most of the town.

Though Conard Sr. was serious about his career, he loved practical jokes. His son called him a daredevil. He said once when flying his Navy plane into a strong headwind from Kansas City to Topeka, he decided to follow the Kansas River and flew under every bridge along the way.

The first time Virginia Conard saw him, he was “buzzing” his Navy plane through campus in front of Watson Library, where she was studying, and over the administrator’s offices.

“Little did I know the pilot was the man I would marry,” she said.