Cronkite's Funeral Scheduled for Thursday

(AP)  Walter Cronkite's final resting place will be next to his late wife in Missouri, where the two first met, his chief of staff said Saturday.

The 92-year-old former CBS anchorman died Friday at his Manhattan home of disease involving blood vessels in the brain, according to Marlene Adler, his longtime chief of staff.

Special Section: Walter Cronkite: 1916-2009

A private funeral service was scheduled for Thursday at St. Bartholomew's Church. Adler said the Rev. William Tully will preside over the Episcopal service at the Park Avenue church, which the Cronkites attended for many years.

A memorial is to be held within the next month in Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Adler said.

"It will be a fitting tribute to Mr. Cronkite and the life he lived, the people he knew, the people who loved him and the people he admired," said Adler, who headed Cronkite's staff for the past 20 years.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization that works to safeguard press freedoms worldwide, will post remembrances of Cronkite, an honorary co-chairman, on its blog.

"Whenever press freedom needed a champion, he was there," CPJ board chairman Paul Steiger said. "We will miss him."

Cronkite is to be cremated and his remains buried next to his wife, Betsy Cronkite, in the family plot at a cemetery in Kansas City.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations to the Walter and Betsy Cronkite Foundation through the AustinCommunityFoundation.org, which will distribute contributions to various charities the couple supported.

[tbbaot]

Journalism might as well be buried right next to Walter...he was the last of his kind. What passes for journalism today doesn't even come close to filling Walter's shoes.

[45ford]

i cried today for a man we could implicitly trust... a man who told us news without fluff or interjecting his personal feelings... a decent and common man who did his craft enormously well... and along the way there was always a sense of hope and eternal optimism in his voice and with his presence... his delivery served as a continual reassurance to a not-so sure nation during troubling times and during jubilant ones too that in the end things would be okay with bigger 'n brighter days ahead of us. i cried today for a man who wholly represented America in much better days. i feel like a part of me died today. thank you Mr. Cronkite... thank you. you will always be tremendously loved and deeply cherished. may you rest in eternal peace.