Frank Alexander Aukofer, former chief of the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, perhaps the best small newspaper bureau in the nation's Capital, was born in Milwaukee on April 6, 1935. His parents were Herbert A. and Wanda Mary Kaminski Aukofer. The son and grandson of printers, Aukofer followed their trade and worked his way through college as an apprentice and journeyman compositor and Linotype operator at commercial printing shops and The Milwaukee Journal. He was also editor of the Marquette Tribune. Immediately after graduating from the Marquette University College of Journalism in 1960, Aukofer began his professional career as a reporter in the Journal's editorial department. He quickly earned a reputation for his coverage of civil rights activities of Father James E. Groppi in Wisconsin and other civil rights stories around the country. In 1966 he won a Ford Foundation fellowship at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he studied civil rights and civil liberties. Among the stories he covered were the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March, the Poor People's March in Washington and the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis in 1968, and the Detroit riots in 1967. His account of the Wisconsin civil rights movement was published as City With a Chance (1968). In Milwaukee he won four Milwaukee Press Club writing awards and two national awards for reporting on highway safety. For two years he was the editor of the Club's annual magazine, Once a Year.
In addition to his general reporting assignments Aukofer wrote regular columns about automobiles, an interest that continued as the syndicated column, “Keys to Wheels” and, later, as “DriveWays.” He served as president of the Washington Automotive Press Association in 1987-'88. Beginning in the 1960s, he also began an active free lance career that included working as the Milwaukee correspondent for Newsweek for two years and writing stories for the Elks Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Herald-Tribune, Look, and Insight Magazine.
In 1970, then substituting as the Journal's assistant city editor, Aukofer was assigned to the paper's Washington, D.C. bureau. In 1989 he became chief of the bureau, replacing John W. Kole. Over 30 years in these positions he covered every aspect of government, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House, and national politics and political conventions. Stories on which he reported included Watergate, the impeachments of President William J. Clinton and Richard M. Nixon, the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings, and the Iran-Contra hearings. In 1990 Aukofer was a part of the first Pentagon press pool to cover the military buildup in the Persian Gulf. In January, 1991 he returned to cover the war. Aukofer has interviewed Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. In 1979 he won the National Press Club's award for newspaper reporting by a Washington correspondent. In 1993 he won the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington correspondence for his coverage of government abuses. In 1986 Aukofer won Marquette's University Merit Award; in 1992 he won the College of Journalism's By-line Award.
Aukofer also covered stories in Mexico (1982) and Central America (1983). In 1985 the Journal sent him to Nicaragua to cover the trial of Eugene Hasenfus (1985). This coverage won Aukofer his paper's Richard S. Davis Prize and a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
From September, 1994, to June, 1995, Aukofer was a visiting scholar at The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, studying the relationship between the military and the media. The product of this research, America's Team: the Odd Couple, was co-authored with William Lawrence, a retired vice admiral who had been a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for six years.
In addition, Aukofer has been active in numerous professional organizations. In 1978 he served as president of the National Press Club and from 1980 to 1985 he was president and chair of the National Press Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes achievement in journalism. As president of the NPC, he oversaw the effort to build a new Press Club building, and he hosted 52 news luncheons, sharing the dais with President Jimmy Carter and other world leaders. In 1974 he was elected to the panel of the Standing Committee of Correspondents of the U.S. Congress. He also served as a member of the board of the Washington chapter of Sigma Delta Chi. In 1992 he was elected to the exclusive Gridiron Club.
In 1960 Aukofer married Sharlene Talatzko. They became the parents of four children: Juliann Navarrete, Matthew P., Becky Hawryluk, and Joseph J. There are 10 grandchildren. Aukofer retired from the Journal Sentinel in 2000.
