Elmont Online

Linda Stowell, a veteran news and business executive for The Associated Press who took up distance running in defiance of her cancer diagnosis and wrote poignantly and powerfully about her long battle with the disease, has died. She was 55.

Stowell died Saturday in Philadelphia of complications arising from cancer, said her sister, Sue Bradley.

Stowell's AP career spanned more than a quarter-century and took her from reporter and editor to regional vice president in charge of the AP's newspaper member relationships in the eastern half of the United States. Based in Philadelphia, she did significant work on the news cooperative's services and products, and supervised bureau chiefs across the region.

Stowell was an "effective business representative and passionate ambassador" who mentored dozens of AP employees and cared deeply about journalism, said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer, and Sue Cross, senior vice president for business development and partner relations for the Americas, in a note to staff Monday.

"She took her work with member newspapers personally," Curley and Cross wrote. "Editors and publishers who met with Linda came away feeling they had an advocate, someone who would do everything she possibly could to make sure their needs were met."

Stowell was chief of bureau in Philadelphia from 1997 to 2003, and before that served as bureau chief for Maryland/Delaware and Virginia. She joined the AP in Hartford, Conn., in 1985 and was promoted to correspondent in Stamford, Conn. In 1988, she was appointed news editor in Richmond, Va.

A native of Rochester, Stowell was a graduate of Mount Union College in Ohio and worked for The Repository of Canton, Ohio, and The Arizona Republic in Phoenix before coming to work for the AP.

In the fall of 2008, she wrote about her decision to begin running -- ignoring her oncologist's advice -- after learning she had not one but two forms of the disease, melanoma and thyroid cancer. She worked her way up from 5Ks to 10Ks to half-marathons.