SCRANTON, Pa.—Lawrence Beaupre, managing editor of The (Scranton) Times-Tribune, who announced plans to retire last summer after a half-century in print journalism, has died, according to the newspaper. He was 68.

Beaupre, who had been managing editor of the northeastern Pennsylvania paper and executive editor of Times-Shamrock Communications since 2000, had told the staff in August that he planned to step down. He said he would keep working through March to help his successor and then planned to work as a consultant for another year or so.

Publisher and chief executive officer W. Scott Lynett at the time described him as a "transformational leader" not only at that newspaper but as others.

"He has made our papers more locally connected and has taught us all how to better serve our readers and grow our audiences, not only in print but also digitally," Lynett said.

Beaupre earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana, where he started working on the campus paper in 1962. He became a reporter at the Rochester Times-Union in 1968, covering stories ranging from the Attica prison riot to Hurricane Agnes flooding. He served as managing editor there from 1980 until 1984, when he became executive editor and vice president of the Westchester Rockland Newspapers, a group of 11 dailies based in White Plains, N.Y.

Beaupre was then editor and vice president of The Cincinnati Enquirer from 1992 to 1998, then an

executive at Gannett Co. Inc. from 1998 until April 2000, when he consulted on newsroom management and staff development and was named managing editor of The Times-Tribune later that year.

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Information from: The Times-Tribune, http://thetimes-tribune.com/