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Bongani Ndlovu, Chronicle Correspondent
Veteran journalist Ray Matikinye who died on Sunday will be buried today in Bulawayo, 9AM at Athlone Cemetery.

He was 68.

Known as Matiks when he was Assistant Editor at Daily News, Ray collapsed at his home in Woodville at around 5PM and died on his way to hospital. This was hours after Daily News’ Assistant Editor Gift Phiri succumbed to cancer at a Harare hospital on Sunday. Gift was buried yesterday at Athlone Cemetery.

A service at his 17 Seventh Avenue, Woodville residence in Bulawayo will be held in the morning.

His daughter Bellaris said although her father has died, she, her siblings and his grandchildren were blessed to have had him in their lives.

“He was a really selfless person and hated no one. He was passionate about his work and it flowed out of him. I was blessed to have a father like that man, he loved me and my siblings so much. To his grandchildren he was more than a grandfather he was a father to them,” said Bellaris.

Born on August 6 1951, at Chivi Clinic, in Chivi, Ray attended Gaths Primary School and Zimuto Secondary School for Forms 1 to 4. At independence Ray was a clerk and attended Ranch House College where he trained as a journalist. He started practising journalism in Kadoma then he was transferred to Harare where he stayed from 1982 to 1984. Ray was later transferred to Bulawayo where he bought a house in Woodville, staying in the city from 1986 to the mid-90s.

Ray was later transferred to Masvingo where he was a Provincial Information Officer. After that stint, he left the Ministry of Information to be Editor at the Masvingo Star. He then joined Daily News, transferred to Harare as a Features Editor before the newspaper shutdown in 2003.

Later he worked at the Financial Gazette and the Independent. When the Daily News reopened in 2011 in Harare, he was appointed Assistant Editor and returned to Bulawayo. He left the Daily News in 2015.

He travelled to Lesotho and worked for The Public Eye for one-and-a-half years as an editor until he retired in December 2017.

He is survived by wife Christine Mhonde, four children Raymond, Bella, Joshua and Lindsay and six grandchildren Martha, Kudzai and Nisbert Chikozho, Makomborero Makoni, Anesu, Anotida and Runakogwashe Matikinye.