Robert Montemayor dies at 62, helped LA Times win Pulitzer with series on Latino community

*Robert’s contribution to the prize-winning three-week series of reports “focused on the difficult situation of students, many of whom, he wrote, ‘have traditionally been neglected and often are regarded by teachers as uncaring failures.’” VL

By David Colker, The Los Angeles Times

Robert Montemayor, who was on the team of Times journalists who shared the 1984 Pulitzer Prize gold medal for meritorious public service for the series “Southern California’s Latino Community,” has died in a Lubbock, Texas hospital. He was 62.

The cause of his Oct. 21 death was cancer, said his friend, Jesus Rangel.

The series, which ran over a three-week period during the summer of 1983, “blended autobiographical accounts and other forms of personalized reporting with in-depth analysis of the problems, achievements and changing nature of the Latino community,” the Pulitzer board noted in awarding the prize shared by 17 reporters, editors and photographers.

Montemayor, a reporter on the project, focused on the difficult situation of students, many of whom, he wrote, “have traditionally been neglected and often are regarded by teachers as uncaring failures.”

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