The Washington Daily News has lost one of its own.

Fred Bonner passed away on Sunday at the age of 78. Bonner was renowned in the Beaufort County community for his weekly outdoors columns that touched on topics from fishing to hunting and everything in between.

Bonner was born in Raleigh and grew up in Aurora. He earned his Wildlife Management degree from North Carolina State and went on to become a research biologist for the Pamlico Marine Laboratory.

“He’s been an outdoors person from, I think, the moment he was born,” his wife Cynthia Bonner said. “As a child, he loved to hunt and fish and take his boat out. … He just relished a challenge and an adventure. Life, for him, was an adventure.”

Combining his passions for the outdoors and for writing, Bonner shared his wildlife knowledge through various media outlets in the region. He contributed his writing to the Raleigh News and Observer and worked in radio with the North Carolina and Virginia News Network.

In all of his journalistic endeavors, Bonner felt most proud of contributing to the Washington Daily News.

“His real love was the Washington Daily News,” Cynthia Bonner said. “He just really felt so proud of that paper and the Pulitzer Prize. I think he felt that was his journalistic home.”

The Washington Daily News sports page hasn’t been the same without Bonner’s outdoors column, and he is already dearly missed.