KPD Blue-About the Author

KPD Blue

By Anthony Sommer

About the Author

Tony Sommer worked as a daily newspaper reporter on Kauai for eight years, most of that time as The Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s entire Kauai bureau.

He holds a bachelor’s degree with a major in journalism and a minor in political science from Central Michigan University (1967) and a master’s degree in journalism and political science from Ohio University (1968).

Before moving to Hawaii, he spent 25 years as a reporter for The Phoenix Gazette, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper, specializing in state government and legal issues. He covered the administrations of six Arizona governors, the Arizona Legislature and the Arizona Supreme Court.

He also worked three years as The Gazette’s investigative reporter covering Charles Keating and the largest savings and loan swindle in American history.

He was the Gazette’s Phoenix City Hall reporter twice, covering the administrations of two different mayors in the nation’s fifth largest city.

Tony also has extensive experience as a police officer and administrator, an unusual background for a journalist and one which allowed him a unique perspective on the Kauai Police Department.

Commissioned in 1967 in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps, he left active duty in 1972 as a captain.

Among his active duty assignments, he was the Military Police Station commander at Fort Carson, Colo., for more than a year and deputy provost marshal (police chief) of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) for a year and a half.

He remained in the active Army Reserve as a Military Police officer for another 23 years, retiring in 1995 as a lieutenant colonel. Among his reserve assignments, he commanded a battalion-level Military Police unit and was an instructor at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College.

Tony retired from daily news reporting in 2005 and returned to Phoenix where he now writes on whatever interests him.