NIELSEN, ROBERT - Retired journalist, died July 10 at the Upper River Valley Hospital. He was born in Plaster Rock, N.B.. to Danish immigrants Hans and Camilla Nielsen. He excelled in school there, leading N.B. in the high school entrance examinations of 1936, and winning a Lord Beaverbrook Scholarship to UNB in 1940. Left UNB in 1943 to work for the Canadian Press in Toronto, moving to the Toronto Star in 1945. In a 33-year career with Canada's largest newspaper his positions included Parliamentary correspondent, chief editorial writer and roving foreign correspondent. He was chosen Nieman (journalism) Fellow for Canada at Harvard University in 1952-53 and won a National Newspaper Award for Enterprise Reporting in 1974 when he donned workman's clothes, represented himself as an unskilled laborer and got hired for a variety of jobs even at the height of Canada's winter unemployment. While on vacation in N.B. in 1965, Nielsen was the first to report that a ratepayers' meeting had voted to bar all 45 Indian pupils from Perth regional school. Resulting national publicity led to a second, much larger meeting of ratepayers who voted decisively to re-admit the Indian children. Nielsen regarded this victory over racial segregation as the best use of press power he had ever initiated. Retired from daily journalism in 1978, he returned to N.B. with his first wife, the former Elizabeth Ogilvy. As a woodlot owner interested in correct forest management, he served six years on the N.B. Forest Products Commission. He did freelance writing for magazines including the Reader's Digest and for three years as a weekly columnist for the Telegraph Journal, wherein his conservative views stirred some controversy. In 1990 he graduated with distinction as a Bachelor of Liberal Studies from the University of Maine at Presque Isle. Nielsen was married 51 years to his first wife, who died in 1998. He is survived by his second wife, Wilhelmine Estabrook of Wilmot, N.B.; one son, John Sigurd of Midlothian, Virginia; one daughter, Christina Nielsen of Fielding; seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. There will be no funeral, but a celebration of his life will take place later. No flowers, but donations in his memory would be welcome to either REAL Women of Canada, Box 8813 Station T, Ottawa ON K13 3K1 or to World Vision, P.O. Box 2500, Stn. Streetsville, Mississauga, ON L5M 2H2. Arrangements have been made through Brunswick Funeral Home Ltd. at Perth-Andover. www.brunswickfuneralhome.ca