Award-winning retired AP journalist Harold Olmos dead at 78

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press

Award-winning Bolivian journalist Harold Olmos, who led Associated Press operations in Venezuela and Brazil, has died at age 78. Olmos fled his coup-convulsed homeland more than four decades ago. His gentlemanly manner belied a remarkable tenacity and he was a role model for AP journalists in South America. He had deep experience covering military challenges to democracy, and had returned to his country in 2006 after retiring from the AP, launching a second career as a columnist, educator and author. Olmos joined the AP in 1969 in La Paz, Bolivia, at age 25, after working as a weekend editor at the Presencia daily.