Albert William Joseph Pinder, 91, the longtime publisher of The Grinnell Herald-Register and an advocate for the betterment of his adopted hometown, died Saturday, Dec. 31, at St. Francis Manor in Grinnell. Pinder died after a long illness, surrounded by his family and under the care of Grinnell Regional Hospice. Visitation at the Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, with the family present from 5 to 7. A celebration of life will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, in Herrick Chapel on the Grinnell College campus. Memorials may be made to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Grinnell. Inurnment at Hazelwood Cemetery will be held at a future date. Pinder's life was characterized by his endless interest in good friends, good economic development and good relationships between people of all nations, work recognized by a wide array of awards and honors. Pinder joined the staff of The Grinnell Herald-Register in 1949. He became publisher in 1974 upon the death of his wife Dorothy Pinder's father, L.B. Watt, publisher since 1944. He was a longtime officer of the Iowa Newspaper Association, serving the organization as president among other roles. Among his most treasured honors were those granted by his peers in the Iowa Newspaper Association, who named him a master editor-publisher in 1975 and winner of the Distinguished Service Award in 1993. 'He is a friendly human power ' outgoing, good-humored, informal, communicative, intellectually sophisticated but intensely interested in plain people and day-to-day events,' wrote his longtime friend Glenn Leggett, former Grinnell College president. 'He is widely traveled, widely read and widely interested and concerned, an ideal spokesman for the best and most substantial part of middle America.' Leggett's comments were recorded in Pinder's nomination for the National Newspaper Association's James O. Amos Award for community journalism, an award honoring those who have provided distinguished service and leadership to the community press and their communities, and bestowed on Pinder in 1999. From the time he arrived in Grinnell, Pinder was active in civic affairs, most notably as a founding member and president for 16 years of Greater Grinnell Development Corporation, a private development group which spearheaded the development of the Industrial Park in southern Grinnell. In honor of his service, a street, Pinder Avenue, in south Grinnell is named after him. Serving on the Board of Trustees of St. Francis Hospital in the early 1960s, Pinder joined with other community leaders working together to consolidate the town's two hospitals, St. Francis and Grinnell Community Hospital, into a single facility serving the entire community's medical needs. The effort was successful in bringing about the merger of the two hospitals into what is now Grinnell Regional Medical Center. Pinder served as one of the early presidents of the board of the new unified hospital. He loved traveling and was an unfailing champion of the small-town virtues that he celebrated in his widely praised international-visitor program, a favorite project that brought around 500 visitors to Grinnell from all over the world through this small-town newspaperman's unique partnership with the United States Department of State. Those visitors returned to their homelands with a new, rich view of the depth and diversity of the United States and its small towns. The United States Information Agency presented him its distinguished service award in 1991 for his work with international visitors. Pinder was born Feb. 21, 1920, in Pittsburgh, Pa., the son of two immigrant parents, Gisela Sophie Boca and Stanley Ludwig Pinder. He grew up in suburban Philadelphia and graduated from high school in Wallingford, Pa. Pinder's father was killed in an industrial accident when he was very young, and he grew up as the son of an immigrant mother who worked to support her four children. As a youth, he worked in the textile mills of his small-town childhood, then chose to reject a full-ride scholarship to Swarthmore College so he could help support his mother and the other children. He worked in the accounting department of Westinghouse Corporation while attending evening classes at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, including as an accountant in contract terminations in Chicago, Ill., from March 1944 to Aug. 1946. After his discharge, he remained in Chicago working for the Truax Traer Coal Company, and completing his Bachelor's degree at the night school of Northwestern University's College of Business. He married Dorothy Jeanne Watt here on Feb. 20, 1949, and moved to Grinnell which became his community for the rest of his life. Pinder drove a team of oxen pulling a conestoga wagon in Grinnell's centennial parade in 1954 as part of a celebration of the town's heritage. The event was captured in a photograph that brought endless amusement to his children who could enjoy the son of the urban East sporting his Midwestern muttonchop sideburns. In the year of Grinnell's sesquicentennial, 2004, Al and Dorothy were honored for service to the community by being selected as grand marshals of the Fourth of July parade and the guests of honor at the Mayor's Gala that year. In 2011, they were jointly honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Chamber of Commerce. He and his wife Dorothy were charter members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and were long-time members and supporters of the Grinnell Golf and Country Club, and he was a member for years of Fortnightly Club. He was granted an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Grinnell College in 1994. He was one of the original Grinnell Area Chamber of Commerce ambassadors, and he twice served as co-chair with his wife, Dorothy Watt Pinder, of the Grinnell College town-gown fundraising drive. He was a board member for many years of Grinnell Federal Savings and Loan, now Lincoln Savings Bank, an institution instrumental in economic development in Grinnell. Throughout his life Pinder traveled widely, including repeated visits to England where he became a fellow of the Wilton Park Center, a conference center inspired