Star Tribune reporter and veteran Twin Cities journalist Burl Gilyard dies at 58

Burl Gilyard had a way with words. Combined with his curiosity, humor and determination, it added up to a long and multifaceted journalism career in the Twin Cities.

Over four decades as a reporter, Gilyard was never short on story ideas or sources as he covered music, media and other subjects for the now defunct City Pages and Twin Cities Reader, and later the medical device industry and commercial real estate beats for Finance & Commerce and Twin Cities Business (TCB).

Gilyard most recently worked as a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune from 2021 to 2024, and it’s where he filed his last byline. Gilyard died on May 15 of complications from a progressive neuromuscular disease known as adrenomyeloneuropathy. He was 58.

“He was pretty excited when he was hired by the Star Tribune,” said Brian Johnson, a Finance & Commerce staff writer who sat next to Gilyard when the two worked together at the publication from 2004 to 2013.

Born in Minneapolis, Gilyard was a “storyteller and communicator forever,” said his wife of 31 years, Nicole Cina of Minneapolis. The couple met while sitting through Journalism 101 at the University of Minnesota, but Gilyard “was not impressed,” she said. Instead, Gilyard earned a bachelor’s degree in American studies, allowing him to explore interests ranging from arts and culture to pottery, history and “a whole bunch of different things,” Cina said.

Gilyard’s earliest writings appeared in the Washburn High School newspaper and the in-store newsletter music reviews he penned for Musicland. In the mid-1990s he landed at the Twin Cities Reader, where he cranked out everything from in-depth features and cover stories on city politics to inside briefs to local music reviews. Over the years his byline also appeared in Rolling Stone magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

Never shy, Gilyard often shouted two of his favorite sayings across the Reader’s newsroom: “Punk rock!” and “Woo-hoo,” recalled his former editor Claude Peck, who later worked as an editor at the Star Tribune.

“He was hardworking,” Peck said. “He was extremely team-oriented. He was a big contributor. He wrote really good stories.”

The late David Carr, Gilyard’s former boss at the Reader and later a New York Times reporter, once described Gilyard as a “laconic and funny writer.”

Among his contributions at the Reader was a column called “Media Bites,” in which Gilyard offered critiques of local media, including the Star Tribune. In a piece baring his soul, Gilyard showed vulnerability with a cover story on his personal battle with depression.

“It was funny and candid,” Peck said. “It was wonderfully done.”

By the late ’90s, Gilyard was already walking with a cane as his degenerative muscular disease progressed; it later forced him to use a walker. But Gilyard refused to let it define him, said Adam Platt, TCB‘s executive editor.

“He never gave into it,” Platt said. “He came in on snow days. He would park on the street and make his way to the building. He insisted on doing things the way everybody else did them.”

Almost. Not everybody kept a collection of Coca-Cola cans to be recycled and a Sonny and Cher album on their desk. Gilyard did. But it was just the environment that drove him to craft catchy headlines to draw readers in as TCB expanded into web journalism.

“He was very good at that,” Platt said.

Gilyard had a “steel trap” mind when it came to recalling music, Platt said, and he often worked pop culture references into his stories so even those without a finance degree or real estate background could understand what he was writing, those who knew him said.

“Those references made their way into straight reporting copy,” said former Pioneer Press media columnist Brian Lambert. “They were common language. A reader could see those references, feel those references, and it acted like a lubricant to otherwise dry matter like real estate. That is a real quality; he was very good at that.”

Gilyard was proud of his home city, although he could have gone anywhere, Cina said.

“He was able to grow and expand his career where he wanted to be,” Cina said. “He took jobs that meshed with the idea of what a writer should be and the integrity a writer should have.”

Gilyard’s first concert at age 14 featured ELO, Cina said. The last show he attended in person was last fall, Cina said, and featured local ELO cover band ELnO.

On June 1, ELnO will perform as part of a concert to pay tribute to Gilyard and help cover medical bills. The Belfast Cowboys and Trailer Trash will also play during the event from 2-6 p.m. at the Hook & Ladder Theater and Lounge, 3010 Minnehaha Avenue S., Minneapolis.