Duane A. Lancaster

Duane Lancaster, 82, head of a lively Wilton Manors, Florida family, and a former newspaper sportswriter who shared his love of sports with family and neighbors alike, passed away on May 30, 2025.

Duane Lancaster held a myriad of jobs from sportswriter to college sports information director to city maintenance worker. He will be more remembered for his zest for life, lifelong curiosity of a wide range of topics, and leader of family cross-country driving trips that involved baseball games, Civil War battlefields, presidential libraries, and the constant quest for a cheap hotel.

It didn’t take long after the Lancasters moved into their family home in Wilton Manors for him to become a fixture in pickup games of wiffleball, tackle football, and just about any game his sons and neighborhood kids played.

Neighborhood kids would knock on the door, said his wife, Arlene Lancaster, to ask, “‘Hey, can Duane come out and play?’ He was just another one of the boys.”

“My Dad was a giant child,” said the youngest of the couple’s three children, Heather Lancaster. “He was always willing to have fun. If there was a road trip or a ballgame to attend, he was the first to say, ‘I’m ready to go.’”

Brett (Pee Wee) Lancaster, the middle child, said his father played tackle football with the neighborhood kids when he was 50, when Pee Wee and his pals were 18.

Shaun Lancaster, the eldest child, said, “I never really thought about it until I got older that, man, my dad was really cool. My friends would tell me my dad was the cool dad.”

Duane became known as “Mister 2-and-2” during his time serving as umpire at youth baseball leagues where his sons played. Whenever the count on a batter reached two balls and two strikes, Duane would hold two fingers up on each hand and then demonstrably show that count to his right, to his left and then to the center, toward the pitcher’s mound. It became his trademark.

Duane Lancaster was born on August 16, 1942, in Wyoming, Michigan, which is near Grand Rapids, the son of Chrystal and William Lancaster. After graduating in 1961 from Wyoming Park High School, Duane attended Grand Rapids Community College where he attained an associate of arts degree, then Michigan State University where he in 1965 earned a bachelor’s degree, majoring in journalism.

He was a lover of sports since he was a child, and by the time he was in high school knew that his dream of being a professional athlete was not to come true. So, he worked to be close to sports by becoming a sportswriter. His first journalism job was as a sportswriter for the Saginaw (Mich.) News for three years. Next was five years as the sports information director for Ferris State College, in Big Rapids, Michigan. He jokingly liked to claim credit that the Ferris State football team had its first undefeated season while he was there.

For six years, during his time in Saginaw and Big Rapids, Duane served in the U.S. Army Reserves. His two-week summer stint at Fort McCoy was a source of multiple humorous stories about army life.

It was at Ferris State that he met his future wife, Arlene (LaBree), who was from Big Rapids and a student who worked in the sports information office. Duane, saying he was tired of the cold winters of Michigan, began looking for a sports writing job in the Southeast. He landed a post in 1973 at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

At the Sun-Sentinel, where he worked for six years, he covered high school sports, harness horse racing, professional soccer, auto racing and was the golf editor. He later worked for seven years at the Sun-Tattler, a daily newspaper in Hollywood, Fla. that is now defunct. While there, he covered the Miami Dolphins, pari-mutuel betting, and was once again golf editor. While at the Sun Tattler, Duane began writing his “Here at Home” columns. It was in these columns that he shared his stories of family and their adventures. These stories are a reflection and a time capsule on how he liked to live his life.

He held a couple of short-term positions in trucking and roofing before landing a maintenance job for the City of North Lauderdale, where he worked until his retirement in 2004 at age 62.

All the while, Duane was active in his children’s sports activities. He was at times a coach, an umpire, and driver for them as well as neighborhood children to ballgames, professional wrestling events, and trips to go-cart tracks and video game arcades.

After moving to Wilton Manors in 1973, the family took annual car trips back to Michigan. It was then that Duane was able to satisfy his thirst for knowledge and adventures. Presidential libraries, the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., National Parks were just some of the places they visited.

Duane was a Civil War history buff and was a Confederate soldier in re-enactments on some of the war’s battlefields. Life as a Confederate soldier also became a source of many humorous tales.

He was known for his witty one-liners or his terrible ‘Dad Jokes’, and he had a stock of many for different situations, occasionally making them up in the moment.

Duane is survived by his wife, Arlene, of Wilton Manors; sons Shaun and Brett (Pee Wee) of Oakland Park; and daughter Heather Lancaster of Wilton Manors. He is also survived by a sister, Donna Kooiker of Grandville, Michigan, brother Donald Lancaster (Marilyn) of Jenison, Michigan and many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his brother Dale Lancaster and a sister Doris Holmberg.

A memorial service will be held at 1:00 p.m. on June 22, 2025 at the First Christian Church of Wilton Manors. 2725 NE 14 Ave. Wilton Manors, Fl. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions can be made to the Music Department of the First Christian Church of Wilton Manors.