Jon Krenek, a longtime reporter for the Daily Journal who headed the newspaper's investigations team and championed its watchdog role in the community, died Tuesday afternoon after a brief and sudden battle with a rare, degenerative brain disease. He was 46.

Krenek first joined the Journal in 2001 before he began winning awards for his relentless reporting on public housing, education, unemployment, teen driver safety, unsolved murders, and the environment.

In 2003, the Illinois Press Association awarded Krenek a first-place prize for community service for his reporting on Kankakee Housing Authority tenants living without hot water.

The Northern Illinois Newspaper Association awarded him another first-place prize, this time for his series on sex offenders living in the area. His most recent investigation preceded the indictment of the head of the Kankakee Valley Park District, Roy Collins, who is accused of fraud and theft.

The list would continue, and Krenek operated on the basic journalistic tenet: The people's right to know.

Len R. Small, publisher of the Daily Journal and president of SNG, said: "Investigative reporting represents at once the most challenging and the most important part of journalism, and we were fortunate to have Jon as our standard bearer."

He was diagnosed in early October with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which afflicts one in 1 million people worldwide each year. His family plans on donating his brain to a research center.

{reprinted from Daily-Journal}

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