Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150153
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE SHENANDOAH BUREAU
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Smith, a 1983 W&L graduate and a reporter for The Tampa Tribune, was cited for excellence by the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation of New York City. The special award was for Smith's pursuit of a story connecting Peru's "Shining Path" guerrillas to Colombian drug lords, said a W&L news release.
Smith's 1989 stories, "Colombia: Among Assassins," also were finalists for a regular Livingston Award for Young Journalists. The awards are presented annually to three journalists younger than 35 for excellence in local, national or international reporting.
Though he did not win a Livingston Award, Smith was given the foundation's first posthumous citation.
The citation was presented to Smith's parents by Mike Wallace, a correspondent for CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, at a luncheon announcing Livingston Award winners June 6.
Charles Eisendrath, administrator of the Livingston Awards, said the W&L graduate was cited because "there was no doubt in our minds that Smith's fatal pursuit of the story connecting Peru's Maoist Shining Path guerrillas to the drug lords in Colombia represented high dedication.
"The more we learned about Smith, the more he seemed to be just the sort of young journalist the Livingstons were established to encourage," Eisendrath wrote in a memo.
Smith, an English major who had edited the W&L newspaper, the Ring-tum Phi, was killed in Peru in November.
Smith was working on a story privately during his vacation when he disappeared in Peru Nov. 17. He was reportedly barred from entering an airplane and taken away at gunpoint, then beaten and strangled.
Smith's mutilated body was found four days later. He was 28.
by CNB