Howard Fisk

Paper: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Deceased: HOWARD FISK, OLDEST GRAD AT 81 OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA THEATER
Date: April 20, 1994
Howard Fisk was the oldest graduate of the University of Minnesota Theater Department at age 81 in 1984. But he acted as young and enthusiastic as any 18-year-old freshman, friends recalled Tuesday.


Fisk died Sunday at the Highland Chateau Health Care Center. He was 91.


''He was great fun,'' said Lance Brockman, one of his theater professors. ''He brought to the class a youthfulness that you don't always see even among the younger students.''


Fisk decided to go back to college in 1981, shortly after his wife, Bernice, died. His daughter Helen Fisk was a student at the University of Minnesota at the time.


''One day he said to me, 'I should go back and finish my degree. You should take me to the university and show me around,''' Helen Fisk said. ''So I did.''


His roots were in theater. He was born in 1902 in Colorado and grew up watching his parents act in and direct community theater productions in Missouri and Colorado.


He spent his career working a variety of jobs, often dabbling in professional writing. He wrote a radio script for a Shirley Temple production as well as several B-movies in Hollywood. He directed a theater company in Colorado, where Hollywood movie starlets would be sent to get theater training.


Fisk moved to Minnesota in the late 1940s where he helped write a WCCO program on the homes for sale in the area - a program hosted by former WCCO anchor Dave Moore. He also worked in real estate and worked as a dispatcher for a trucking company. After his retirement, he worked for a nursery and floral shop.


His play, ''Not Borned Fer Hangin'' - about a Western outlaw who didn't want his son following in his notorious footsteps - won a university contest. It was one of the three student plays put on that year at the school.


He is survived by five children - Howard Fisk and Helen Fisk of St. Paul; Heidi Fisk of Eagan; Nancy Heath of Ohio and Kathryn Smith of Oregon - and three grandchildren.


Services will be Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Willwerscheid & Peters Mortuary, 1167 Grand Ave. Visitation will be from 4 to 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Author: BYLINE: Molly Guthrey, Staff writer
Section: Metro
Page: 5C

Copyright (c) 1994 St. Paul Pioneer Press