Samuel J. Boyle, 59, who in two decades as chief of The Associated Press’ New York City bureau oversaw coverage of high- profile events from elections and gangster trials to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, died Sunday.
Boyle died at home after a long battle with lung cancer, his wife, Suzanne O’Brien, said in an e-mail.
Boyle was born Sept. 25, 1948, into a Philadelphia newspaper family. His father, Samuel, was an editor. His younger brother Bill died Sept. 8, also of cancer, after a career that included editorships in Philadelphia and at New York’s Daily News.
Boyle joined the AP in Newark, N.J., in 1971, transferred to the Philadelphia bureau a year later, and over the next seven years moved from AP’s business desk to the national desk at New York headquarters and then to deputy sports editor.
In 1981, Boyle was appointed chief of bureau for West Virginia and the following year became New York bureau chief.
“Sam was an old-fashioned, hard-nosed newspaperman who thrived on the raucous, anything-can-happen atmosphere that makes New York City a unique place for news,” said Mike Silverman, AP’s senior managing editor. “But as much as he loved a big story, his allegiance first and foremost was to his staff.”
Gus Arriola, 90, a cartoonist whose long-running “Gordo” was one of the first syndicated comic strips to celebrate Latino culture, died Saturday following a lengthy illness, according to his publicist.
Arriola, who had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for some time, died at home in Carmel, Calif., with his wife, Mary Frances, by his side, his publicist said.
Arriola, born in Arizona of Mexican- American descent, started drawing “Gordo” in 1941.
His strip about a bean farmer turned tour guide who taught Americans about life south of the border ran for 44 years in as many as 270 newspapers. He retired in 1995.
“He became an accidental ambassador. I didn’t intend for him to be, but the readers made him that,” Arriola said of Gordo in a 2002 interview with The Associated Press.
