Legendary Roanoke outdoors writer Bill Cochran dies

As we huffed and puffed dragging kayaks toward the Chesapeake Bay, I looked at my friend Bill Cochran and made an offer.

“Just leave it and I’ll come back and get it for you,” I said. “You don’t need to wear yourself out before we even get to the water.”

Cochran hesitated, gave me a wry smile and said, “I’ll be just fine.”

We kept dragging, launched our craft and spent the afternoon paddling through salt marshes as we cast for spotted sea trout, puppy drum and flounder.

Even in his mid-70s, Cochran had no trouble setting the pace and catching the most fish. He was more than fine out there on the water, doing what he loved.

Cochran, the retired and beloved outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times, died Sunday at the age of 86, after a lifetime during which he not only spent as much time as possible outdoors, but did a masterful job of sharing that love colorfully and accurately with legions of adoring readers.

Bill Cochran, 1937-2024

Preston Cochran said his father had slowed over the past couple of years and had suffered several falls recently. About two weeks ago doctors discovered that he had an aggressive, untreatable form of bladder cancer, after which he entered palliative care at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Bill Cochran was born Oct. 11, 1937, in Roanoke. He was preceded in death by his parents, Allen R. and Ruby B. Cochran; sister Nancy Cochran Wooldridge; and an infant grandson, Travis Martin Cochran. Survivors include his wife, Katherine; his son, Preston Scott Cochran; daughter-in-law Tonja Roberts Cochran; and granddaughter Kalei Nichol Cochran.

Service arrangements are pending.

“There was no better outdoors writer,” said retired Roanoke Times sports writer Doug Doughty, who worked alongside Cochran for decades.

Cochran grew up in a modest northwest Roanoke neighborhood, and that’s where he eventually started his own family with his wife of 59 years, the former Katherine Painter Gravett. They had one son, Preston.

Although he wasn’t a country kid, Bill Cochran gravitated to fishing, hunting and the outdoors in general.

“His dad and a close uncle both loved the outdoors and he got that from them,” said Preston Cochran, who in turn became an avid outdoorsman. “I consider myself lucky that we both had a love for the outdoors and got to spend so many days together doing what we loved.”

David Whitehurst, a retired senior director with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (now Department of Wildlife Resources), said Cochran’s reputation was impeccable.

“Bill and I spent a lot of time together many years ago, and he was the epitome of professionalism,” Whitehurst said. “To my knowledge, he provided the most comprehensive coverage of the department and outdoor activities for the longest period of time of any journalist.”

Whitehurst said Cochran’s character was his most admirable feature.

“You could trust him completely,” he said. “He always honored the ‘off the record’ rule. Knowing and working with Bill was one of the highlights of my career.”

As he reflected on his career in recent years, Cochran happily admitted that he spent so much time reading and writing about the outdoors as a high schooler — his first story was published in National Bowhunter while Cochran was still a student at William Fleming High School — that his grades were less than stellar. He said he was able to gain admission to Lynchburg College only after showing up for an admissions interview with a folder stuffed with published stories.

Soon after graduating from the University of Lynchburg (then Lynchburg College) with a degree in English literature, Cochran started freelancing for The Roanoke Times in 1962. He was hired to cover the outdoors at the paper the next year, retiring from the full-time job in 1998.

After retirement, Cochran wrote a weekly online column for Roanoke.com until 2014, with the column appearing in The Roanoke Times’ print edition from 2014 to 2018. He was also a prolific freelancer, with stories appearing in national magazines including Field and Stream, Outdoor Life and Sports Afield.

He saved much of his writing, and his columns and stories later in his career often referenced stories from decades prior.

Preston Cochran wasn’t sure how his dad managed to find the information.

“On his desk there were stacks of stuff everywhere, but he could find anything he looked for,” he said, laughing. “When he moved a few years ago, he had to go through thousands of magazines.

“I’m surprised the floor didn’t cave in.”

In April 2009, Cochran became the first outdoors writer to be inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

Cochran’s career coincided with many interesting local and national stories, including construction of dams that created exciting fisheries such as Smith Mountain Lake and Lake Moomaw, the explosive growth of white-tailed deer populations and deer hunting, and a move to expand newspaper outdoors coverage beyond traditional hook and bullet sports. He adapted seamlessly to the world he reported on.

By the mid-1990s, Bill and Katherine Cochran moved to a home they had built in Catawba near where the Appalachian Trail crosses Blacksburg Road. Starting in 1995, they operated Cross Trails Bed and Breakfast, which they ran until 2003. Cochran also had a 300-acre Christmas Tree farm near Snowshoe, West Virginia, and for many years spent the weeks before Christmas selling trees from a lot on Williamson Road.

Several years ago, the Cochrans moved to a smaller home near Read Mountain in Botetourt County, Bill joking that he finally was ready for single-level living once he passed 80 years old.

Until a couple of years ago, Cochran still regularly fished with his son and friends in his center-console bay boat out of Cape Charles, where the family had a weekend home.

“Since I was a kid we always loved the Eastern Shore,” Preston Cochran said. “Dad would hook up his little bass boat and we’d tow it down there to go flounder fishing, living in one of those little motels that advertised color TV and air conditioning.

“It was vacation for me but work for him.”

Preston Cochran said that there were times when his dad’s job did create some challenges.

“He always had to work the opening day of trout season and opening day of deer season,” he said. “But he’d make up for it. There were times I’d bug the heck out of him to take me hunting or fishing and he’d always take me, even though there were times he probably didn’t want to.”

In addition to his love for the outdoors, Bill Cochran was a devoutly spiritual man, who was proud to have taught an adult Sunday school class for more than 50 years. He also taught a Bible study class at the Roanoke City Jail weekly on Sunday afternoon for 40 years.

In the fall of 1998, a few months after retiring from writing for The Roanoke Times, Cochran came to the newspaper’s downtown office to meet the man who had been hired to be the paper’s new outdoors editor. Cochran carried a yellow legal pad with dozens of pages of notes, and names and phone numbers of his key sources. He wanted his successor — me — to succeed.

A few years later, he told me that wasn’t quite sure what to think about the paper’s decision to hire a journalist who, despite also being a passionate outdoorsman, had not written much about the outdoors.

“I’m glad you proved me wrong,” he told me. “I’m really proud of you.”

It remains among the most touching and meaningful compliments I’ve ever received.

During my nearly 16 years at The Roanoke Times, Bill would ride with me nearly every time I drove to Richmond to cover Department of Wildlife Resources board of directors meetings.

While those meetings could be dry, I loved and eagerly anticipated those quarterly trips to Richmond. We talked about everything, including a lot of shop. On the trip east, with the sun rising in our eyes, we would speculate about what news the meeting might produce. And then we would analyze that news as we drove back to Roanoke.

Cochran would rarely miss a chance to kid me that it wasn’t fair that I’d get to scoop him. That’s because my story would almost always run in the daily paper before his appeared in its once-a-week online slot. Even though I almost always got the first shot, Bill always had something new and different in his stories. To echo Doughty, there was no better outdoors writer.

It was during those trips that I quickly learned that the man who could seemingly effortlessly create beautifully descriptive outdoor writing also had a deliciously witty sense of humor. We had many inside jokes about the unique outdoor writing world we shared. I mentioned one to him during a recent visit and despite his failing health, he flashed that same wry smile.

We fished together many times, including that day on kayaks near his Cape Charles home, a day (unsuccessfully) targeting big red drum in the surf on a barrier island on the Eastern Shore, and a memorable evening on the Chena River in Fairbanks, Alaska, where we were attending the Outdoor Writers Association of America’s annual conference.

But we were never happier “fishing” together than at his small pond in Catawba as he proudly watched his beloved granddaughter Kalei, and I watched my toddler twin girls, catching bluegills on worms.

The post Legendary Roanoke outdoors writer Bill Cochran dies appeared first on Cardinal News .