Funeral service for Steve Repko, an Ypsilanti High School graduate and former sports editor of the Ypsilanti Press, will be held at 3 p.m. Friday at Stark Funeral Service in Ypsilanti.

The family will receive friends from noon until the time of service. His guest book can be signed at www.starkfuneral.com.

Repko died Friday, Dec. 31. He was 58 years old.

Repko began his career at the Ypsilanti Press as a part-time weekend reporter while studying journalism at Michigan State University. After receiving a bachelor's degree from MSU in 1974, Repko became a full-time sportswriter for the Ypsilanti Press. Two years later, he became the sports editor.

When the Press folded in 1994, Repko joined the Associated Press bureau in Detroit, where he helped cover Detroit’s professional teams and college athletics throughout Michigan. In 2000, Repko took a sports copy editor and baseball columnist position at the Oakland Press before leaving due to illness in 2007.

For over 35 years, the Ypsilanti native covered a wide range of sports at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. Baseball, however, was his specialty and passion.

Repko regularly started his summer vacations by attending the Major League Baseball All-Star game. He covered the Detroit Tigers’ World Series championship campaign in 1984 and the team's playoff run in 1987. Repko covered the Eastern Michigan University baseball team in the 1975 and 1976 College World Series.

Repko went on to become a lifetime member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), voting in the annual elections for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

This past fall, the 1970 graduate was inducted into the Ypsilanti High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

Repko was born March 21, 1952 in Danbury, Conn., the son of Michael L. and Patricia A (Saunders) Repko. In 1955, the Repko family moved to Ypsilanti.