by William J. Holstein
United Press International (UPI) veteran Patrick Killen managed to publish a book, Asia Earnie, about the swashbuckling Occupation-era United Press Tokyo bureau chief Earnest Hoberecht, before he passed away in Dallas on May 3 after a brief hospitalization at the age of 92. It was Killen’s first book.
One of Killen’s most recent public appearances had been in April in Las Vegas at a reunion of the Alley Cats, the softball team of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, of which he’d been a stalwart.
After attending Colorado College and UCLA and a stint with the U.S. Navy, Killen joined the then United Press in 1956 before its merger with International News Service, which created UPI in 1958. He reported from San Francisco, Honolulu, Karachi, New Delhi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Washington, D.C., Manila, Chicago (where he oversaw the reporting efforts of Bill Holstein in the Lansing, Mich. Bureau) and back to Washington again.
From 1987 to 2004, Killen worked in Japan for the Daily Yomiuri, the Weekly Nikkei and the Kikkoman Corp., a maker of soy sauce.
He moved to Dallas in 2005 with wife Miyoko. They had a daughter, Kimberly.