Cole Campbell has died
Cole Campbell, who was AME here at the News & Record when I began work here in April 1987, died earlier today of injuries from a wreck. I just happened to see the story on the wire while here at home testing a new Web interface for Associated Press material.
Cole was the smartest person I've ever worked with, in or out of newspapers. And that's saying something. He was always looking over the horizon, and he frequently could see what was out there sooner and better than anyone else.
He also was an incredibly nice guy, at least to me.
He left the N&R in '89 for a Knight fellowship at Stanford. Following that, he worked for our mothership in Norfolk, then at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I kind of lost touch with him for a few years after that, but then I heard from him a couple of years ago. He had become dean of the journalism school at Nevada-Reno. We exchanged e-mails during my work with the N&R's citizen-journalism initiative. His gifts were a big part of what our hidebound industry needed, and as bad as I feel for his family, I also feel bad for the students, and other faculty, at Nevada-Reno who won't be able to benefit from working with him.
Damn. What a shame.