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Associate Editor Frank del Olmo suffered an apparent heart attack in the L.A. Times offices this morning and has died. Frank had been a member of the staff for more than 30 years as a reporter, columnist, editorial writer and editor. Managing Editor Dean Baquet announced his passing to the staff a little after 1:30 p.m.
Frank shared in a Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service awarded to the paper for a 1984 series, "Southern California's Latino Community." He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 1987-88. He served on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the California Chicano News Media Association, a group he helped start. He graduated from Cal State Northridge.
Update 3 p.m.: The obituary by Claudia Luther on the Times website calls del Olmo "a major voice for Latinos in Southern California." It also mentions the columns he wrote each December chronicling his son Frankie's struggle with autism. In the final one, he said poignantly "I have dreaded Frankie's adolescence...But there is no postponing it."