Jerry Heaster, dean of The Kansas City Star’s business desk, is retiring — bringing an end to a long and distinguished career in business journalism.

Heaster, 67, cited health issues as the reason he is leaving the newspaper. Over the past two years, his popular column has appeared only intermittently — first because of a broken hip suffered in February 2004 and later because of a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosed later that year.

Heaster, who addressed his health problems and experiences in the health-care system several times in his columns, said the physical toll of treatments sapped his energy to write regular columns.

“I just ran out of gas,” said Heaster, who wrote more than 5,000 columns over 27 years at The Star. “There’s no fuel left in the tank.”

Heaster’s retirement comes amid plaudits from his colleagues in business journalism.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers plans to bestow the organization’s President’s Award on Heaster at its annual meeting this spring in Minneapolis. Heaster is just the fourth recipient of the award, which the organization, established in 1964, grants occasionally to recognize significant contributions to the organization and business journalism.

Allan Sloan, a financial columnist with The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine, hailed Heaster as a pioneer in business journalism at daily newspapers, which began to take business and economic news seriously only in recent decades.

“Jerry did what all of us in journalism are supposed to do,” Sloan said. “He served his readers for more than 30 years. He knew them and they knew him. People like him are the reason that newspapers exist.”

A proud son of West Virginia, Heaster joined The Star in early 1979 after nearly a decade with The Journal Herald in Dayton, Ohio. He spent much of the 1960s with Pacific Stars and Stripes and the Okinawa Morning Star in the Far East. He served in the U.S. Army from 1956 to 1961, primarily in Korea, Japan and Okinawa.

In addition to crafting penetrating, often provocative columns, Heaster served as business editor of the evening Star until it merged operations with The Kansas City Times in 1990. Since then, he has focused exclusively on his columns, consistently espousing his fundamental faith in the power of market forces and personal initiative to better the world.

“I’ve always thought a columnist should be a catalyst for public dialogue,” Heaster said in a feature story appearing in Kansas City magazine in 1981. “You don’t do that without raising hell in public.”

In doing so, Heaster built a large and loyal following in the Kansas City area, particularly among readers who appreciated a strong conservative voice in the local paper.

“Jerry has remained a good friend and respected observer/commentator of the world of economics and business for almost 30 years,” said Lynn Mitchelson, chairman and chief executive of Western National Bank in Lenexa. “Jerry expended the extra effort to discover and understand and explain market forces and the often counterintuitive results produced by well-intentioned policymakers.”

Largely self-educated in economic and business matters, Heaster often joked that he was named financial editor of The Journal Herald because he was the only person in the newsroom who read The Wall Street Journal every day. He was a voracious reader of financial publications and economics and business texts that shaped his market-based world view.

Early on, Heaster became a leader in the emerging field of business journalism. He is a past president and board member of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and has mentored a generation of business journalists at The Star — establishing lasting personal relationships that often extended beyond the hurly-burly of the newsroom to the comparative quietude of area golf courses.

“There are very few business journalists who get to spend most of their careers in one place,” said Randy Smith, deputy managing editor at The Star and a past president of the society. “Jerry did. And the reason was threefold: His fantastic grasp of his subject. His love affair with Kansas City. And his very positive relationship with readers of The Star.”

Heaster’s ramrod straight posture, a remnant of his military service, and meticulous work habits stood out amid the creative chaos of the newsroom. He cut and pasted thousands of columns into bound notebooks. And he took note of the name of every reader he interacted with — even those who vociferously disagreed with him — and listed their names in an annual “thank you” column.

“Jerry represents everything that’s right about our business,” said Steve Shirk, managing editor/news of The Star. “He’s tough. He’s fair. He appreciates the depth of knowledge of our readers and treats them with the dignity they deserve. Jerry is one of the true gentlemen of our profession.”

Mark Zieman, editor and vice president of The Star, said the newspaper will search for a successor to Heaster, but he noted that each columnist has a unique voice that isn’t easily replaced.

“Heaster is Heaster,” Zieman said. “I tried to get him to change years ago, then wised up and left him alone — which I’m sure our readers appreciated.”

Heaster said he never wavered in his love of readers, whether they agreed with him or not.