George Ramos, a lifetime member of NAHJ and inductee into the NAHJ Hall of Fame, has passed away. He was 63. George was a mentor for the Student Campus at this year’s convention in Orlando, volunteer work he had done for many years. He was the consummate journalist, and was part of three teams whose work won Pulitzer Prizes for the Los Angeles Times. We grieve his loss and miss him. This tribute is written by NAHJ’s Vice President for Broadcast Manuel de la Rosa, one of George’s many protégés. – Michele Salcedo, President

George Ramos and Rosa Morales during his 2007 Hall of Fame induction. Morales and Ramos co-directed the NAHJ Student Campus.

By Manuel de la Rosa

George Ramos: Dead at 63. I couldn’t believe it when saw the link sent to me by Frank Sotomayor. George was our common link between Frank and me. When I saw Frank’s e-mail, I said to myself, something happened to George. I never thought it would be this kind of tragedy.

Ramos never had a child, but if he did, I would be his son. I think of myself a mini-George minus his great accolades and the numerous awards he won. I always wanted to be like him. I wanted to be a successful journalist and be a journalism professor. He was my father-like figure in the journalism field. Whenever I needed guidance, he was there to help me. When I needed friendship, he was there to listen to me. When I need to be lectured, he was there to do that. He was my friend, my mentor and the person I admired.

I first got to know Ramos at the University of Southern California in 1990. I registered for his Journalism 206 class. It was right after the USC won the Rose Bowl versus Michigan, 17-10. If you know anything about him, he was an avid UCLA fan and hated USC football. His first words weren’t very complimentary of USC and its victory. Mind you, he was teaching at the university so the students were surprised to hear him say that. I wasn’t because I knew about his dislike for the Trojans.

When I took his class, I learned a lot about George. I found out he was passionate about journalism. He wanted to teach kids about the craft of journalism. To him, it meant everything in the world to develop the next generation of journalists. He had no problems failing a student if he didn’t think they belonged in the industry. He was a professor you either loved him or hated him. I thought he was great. I like to say he taught me everything I knew. The one thing he kept preaching was courtesy persistence. He told us we had to be tough and firm to succeed in the business, but we couldn’t upset people to the point where you couldn’t get information out of them. He showed me how to report and how not to be afraid of anything. His class inspired me to be a journalist. More than 20 years later, I am still here and it’s because of him.

The other thing about Ramos is he would challenge you. One of the toughest assignments was finding people. I remember in one of his classes, he had his students find William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk on the old “Star Trek” television series. We had to have three sources. Some students even went to Shatner’s home because that could be one source, if you got him to sign a piece of paper. Shatner used to get mad at him and call the Journalism School, saying he was teaching tabloid journalism. Ramos would keep assigning him in defiance of Shatner and his criticism of his teaching methods. It kind of defined who George was, a person who bucked the system and did things his own way.

His class was one of the toughest at the university. He gave out very few A’s and B’s. For our final, he would bring us into the LA Times Metro area. Of course, for a young journalist, it was an honor to be there. He would hand out assignments, like an editor. Everybody was handed typical assignments, like a murder in the city or an obituary for a famous person. We had four hours to get the assignment done. He assigned me a riot at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, his alma mater, which was three hours away. I told him that’s unfair. I cannot drive there. His response: That’s not my problem. So here I was trying to call business owners in San Luis Obispo, getting rejected and turned down for the most part. It was frustrating but I turned in my report. I even got a quote that I turned over to the reporter for the LA Times who used it in her article. Even with that, I still got an A- in his class. It was a grade we fought over during our 21 years of friendship. Again, this defined George. He would challenge you to make you better. For that, I am grateful.

George and I had a lot some things in common. He was born and raised in East Los Angeles. He went to Garfield High School. My father had a similar story, though he was a bit younger than George. I looked up to him as a father. I was born in East Los Angeles too, though my life took a different path. I was raised in the San Gabriel Valley, but came back to the area when I started attending USC. We both loved journalism and love to be challenged. We both loved sports. We had some disagreements. George hated the Dodgers because he said they took the land to build the Dodgers Stadium from a Chicano community called Chavez Ravine. Of course, there was the USC and UCLA rivalry. Every year, we would place a wager on that game with the loser to buy drinks at the NAHJ Conference.

A year after I graduated from the university, there were the LA Riots. This was the worst thing ever to happen to LA in my lifetime. I was too young for the Watts Riots and East LA Riots. We were a city in mourning over the destruction, caused by the riots. Then a column came out in the LA Times. It was a column written by George about the aftermath of the riots. He wrote an article that every person in LA wanted to say, but couldn’t say it. As Veronica Garcia, a fellow L.A. Times staffer at the time, stated to me, “this was his signature piece.” He put the riots into perspective and gave it a feel of a person from East Los Angeles. It was a great piece of work and one I still remember to this day. After that, he was a columnist for a short time for the LA Times. He wrote many great columns. It was written from the perspective of a kid from East LA and really only people from East LA could appreciate what he wrote. Unfortunately, as anal as the LA Times was, management stopped his column and the LA Times has never been the same.

Ramos was part of the of the LA Times reporting team that won a Pulitzer for their work from the LA Riots. He also won a Pulitzer for being a co-editor on the 1984 series of articles about Latinos in LA, the first of its kind that talked about the life of Latinos. He also later won another Pulitzer for his work from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. He was a great reporter with an accomplished career.

Who could ever forget his article about his own barrio? It was part of the Latinos in LA series. It was a little before my time as I was in high school at the time, but he wrote about 812 N. Record in East LA. I remember going to that house as part of an assignment from my college class. It was in the heart of the barrio near Aliso Village. George wrote an epic column about his upbringing there and his family ties to this neighborhood. It was an inspiring piece that left you thinking how many other young Chicanos who grew up in East LA and left to a suburban city outside of ghetto to live a better life, but more importantly didn’t forget their roots. That is one thing George never forget where he came from and it was a constant theme in his daily stories for the LA Times.

He was inspired to go into journalism by Ruben Salazar. He would tell me how he only met Ruben once or twice, but he motivated him to go into journalism. His death in the East LA bar got him into the business after he served a tour in Vietnam. His other great mentor was Frank del Olmo. He constantly would tell me about Frank and their friendship. He was devastated when Frank died. It really hit him hard. It was so sudden and he couldn’t believe it. Very ironic because he died much the same way.

The one thing people didn’t know about Ramos was he was a teddy bear below that abrasive and in-your-face reporter he was out in the field. The person that created that image was his mother. I met her a few times. She was a sweet woman, filled with kindness and love. She was very proud of George. I remember when his work was on display in Washington, D.C., at an exhibit at the Smithsonian, the two of them went to visit. I was spending the summer there, attending a college program. She was so happy to see Ramos being honored at the exhibit. She would read every article of his and was his biggest fan. George said she liked me and would always ask about me. When she died, a piece of George died.

George was about loyalty. In 2003, he left the LA Times to become a professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He remembered how the university gave him an opportunity when he got out of the U.S. Army after fighting in Vietnam. He would go speak at the college whenever he had a chance. He loved being a mentor to young kids. So this was a perfect match when he started working on the Central Coast. He worked as the chair for five years before resigning, though he remained as a professor there. He loved living in Morro Bay, where he was found dead. When he went to college there, that’s where he lived too.

After I graduated in 1991, we remained friends through the California Chicano News Media Association and National Association of Hispanic Journalists. George was a founder of both groups. We met every year at the NAHJ Conference to talk about the business. He would always ask about my family. He loved my wife and the kids. He would ask me about my career. George never got married. He was married to the business. I always told him I wish I could have done the same and been like him. He always told me that it  was good I had a wife and kids. I always admired him because he was a true journalist, old school. His dedication is one we don’t see any more in this business.

I am proud to say Ramos is in the NAHJ Hall of Fame. As I stated, he saw himself as a kid from East LA. He didn’t care about awards or laurels. He just wanted to be a reporter. People, like Ruben Salazar, Frank del Olmo and Frank Sotomayor, there were the legends and deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. George thought he was different. People didn’t like his brutal honesty and it upset them. George would call something as he saw it. He wouldn’t sugar-coat it. That upset a lot of people. Fred Araiza from the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson and I decided to nominate him in 2007 without telling Ramos. I worked the NAHJ Board to get the votes to get him in, while Araiza compiled the information for his application. We got him into the NAHJ Hall of Fame. I will never forget the phone call to let him know he was elected to the NAHJ Hall of Fame. George wasn’t an emotional person, but I sensed his emotion and he was so happy. He told me my only regret is my mom won’t be there to see me get inducted. She was his inspiration and biggest cheerleader. I remember he was so grateful to Fred and me for getting him this honor. To this day, I am glad we got it done because he deserves to be in there with the rest of Hall of Famers from NAHJ.

Ramos was involved with the Student Campus program for NAHJ for the last several years. For this year’s conference, he asked me to speak to the students as part of a career panel. I gave a fiery speech, the way Ramos would do it. I talked about this business isn’t for everybody. It’s only for certain people. This is something George taught me. I talked about how I am not afraid of anybody or anything when I report. Again, something George told me. The best part I told them I am old school: A reporter who will walk the streets and talk to every person at a crime scene or a story. Again, this is something I learned from Ramos along with courtesy and persistence. Afterwards, I walked up to George and said, “I sounded like a mini-George or a younger version of you.” He said, “I agree. And I am proud of you.” Those words I will cherish for the rest of my life.

One last remembrance. I told you about the USC-UCLA wager. George and I made the wager payable at the NAHJ conference. His Bruins lost again this year so he owed me. We kept missing each other at the conference to pay up. I was set to leave on Saturday afternoon, and we were going to say pay up next year. Unfortunately, my flight got delayed so I stayed one more day at the conference. At that closing ceremony, George paid up. We spent a lot of time that night, talking and catching up. The irony: A flight set me back but gave me a chance to spend one last night with my mentor. I am sure he is looking down from heaven right now saying I am glad I paid off my debt because Manny would have come to collect that once he got to heaven to be with me.

You know a part of me died when George died. It won’t be the same without him at a NAHJ conference, but we can’t quit now. We must carry on his legacy. We must mentor and help young people get into the business, just like he did. More importantly, keep in contact with and be that big brother or big sister to keep young Latinos in the industry. I am ready to carry the torch George held for so long. I know there are literally thousands of others on whom he had an impact who are ready to join me.

George Ramos, RIP. You will not be forgotten.

Obituary in the Los Angeles Times

George Ramos: Tough Guy Reporter with a Big Heart, Tribute by Frank Sotomayor in L.A. Observed

George Ramos, reporter and friend — R.I.P., Remembrance by friend and colleague Patt Morrison of the Los Angeles Times