When Mark Taylor succeeded Bill Cochran as the outdoors editor of The Roanoke Times in 1998, readers were wary of the new guy.
“He was an institution,” Taylor said of Cochran in a phone interview Monday. “People were very suspicious of me. One thing that they would tell me is, ‘Bill Cochran is a friend of mine.’ I heard that so many times.
“He seemed like a friend to everybody. … I don’t think anybody disliked Bill.”
Cochran, who served as the outdoors editor for The Roanoke Times for 35 years, died of bladder cancer Sunday night at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital at the age of 86.
Cochran’s byline appeared in The Roanoke Times and/or its website from 1962-2018.
“It wasn’t just a beat. The outdoors was his life,” Taylor said. “He was passionate about that.”