Mal Deans, a longtime newspaperman and former professor at the University of Colorado journalism school, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday at a hospice, his wife said.
Deans, 83, taught journalism at CU from 1976 to 1987 after a long career in newspapers.
He was assistant managing editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin for 12 years and worked as a reporter and editor at several other newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Tribune and Rocky Mountain News.
In 1983, he became the readers’ representative for the Rocky Mountain News, charged with investigating readers’ comments and questions.
His wife, Susan Deans, is editor of The Daily Camera in Boulder.
Mal Deans never worked at the Camera but helped edit his wife’s columns.
“He was a very good editor,” she said Thursday. “He would usually suggest a few improvements. If he saw things in the Camera that were not as they should be, he would be among the first to tell me.”
The two met in 1974 when Susan Deans was a graduate student at CU’s journalism school and he was a visiting professor, though she wasn’t one of his students.
Mal Deans was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three weeks ago and went to HospiceCare of Boulder and Broomfield counties Tuesday afternoon, Susan Deans said.
