John Curran, AP correspondent, dies at 54

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Careening down a Vermont mountain on the back of an all-terrain vehicle driven by a 16-year-old boy, without having taken the time to find a helmet, John Curran was looking to reach the town of Rochester, isolated by flooding left by the remnants of Hurricane Irene. Mainly he was looking for a story.

Curran, who died Saturday of a heart attack at age 54 at his Montpelier home, will be remembered as someone who moved fast when a big story was breaking and as a devoted and proud husband and father. He carried a cub reporter's excitement and enthusiasm, still thrilled by the slices of life he got to witness as a journalist.

He was known among his Associated Press colleagues -- he had worked in Charleston, W.Va., Boston and Atlantic City before coming to Vermont -- for his dedication and for a beautiful writing style that seemed to come from a great ear for what people were telling him.

"John found joy in reporting about people," said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP. "From the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey to the mountain communities of Vermont, he loved nothing better than meeting people and telling their stories to the world. We will be poorer indeed without him."

Evan Berland, AP's deputy editor for the East who worked with Curran in New Jersey, said Curran talked about stories with colleagues with "a wide smile and sometimes a disbelieving shake of his head, and it was easy to see why the people he interviewed opened up to him and that the news was endlessly fascinating to him."

Here, he writes about the Miss America pageant leaving Atlantic City after more than eight decades:

"Before the slot machines, before the cheap buffets, before The Donald, there was Miss America," Curran wrote. "Born of a Boardwalk publicity stunt, she accidentally became an American icon, thanks to years of televised crownings watched by little girls staying up late to see the black-and-white telecast from Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. For 84 years, Atlantic City was Miss America -- and Miss America was Atlantic City."

, Curran pushed his staff of three writers and a photographer to work harder but set the pace by working harder than anyone else himself. He balanced drive with compassion, telling staffers with health or personal problems, "Your health comes first" or "Your family comes first."