Former K-R editor, Guild leader Howell killed

Deborah Howell, a pioneering journalist who helped lead both major Twin Cities newspapers in the 1970s and '80s and later served as ombudsman for the Washington Post, died Friday after being hit by a car in New Zealand, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said.

Coleman, who is Howell's stepson, said the family received word that Howell, who was fulfilling a lifelong dream to visit New Zealand, was struck as she crossed a street near Blenheim, New Zealand. She was traveling with her husband, C. Peter Magrath, former president of the University of Minnesota.

Howell, 68, was city editor and later an assistant managing editor of the Minneapolis Star in the 1970s, and managing editor and executive editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the 1980s. Under her leadership, the Pioneer Press, then owned by Knight-Ridder, won two Pulitzer Prizes.

“She was a powerful force for good journalism," Coleman said.

While city editor at the Minneapolis Star, Howell also led the paper's Newspaper Guild unit. Later, when she moved from a union position to management, Howell said she "had to screw my head on a different way. But I think I was a better manager because I had been a union type, because I knew what it was we needed to do."

Click on the headline to read the Minneapolis Star-Tribune article.