Marilyn McMahon, veteran News-Press reporter, is dead at 93

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Marilyn McMahon, a Santa Barbara News-Press features writer and a fixture at the now-defunct paper for 48 years, died at her home across from the Mission on Aug. 24.

McMahon began her News-Press career in 1975 and filed her last story in May. After a bad fall that month, her family said, she nonetheless began talking about returning to work; but that was before Wendy McCaw, the disgraced News-Press owner and co-publisher, filed for bankruptcy on July 21.

McMahon was born Marilyn Kwiatkowski in Milwaukee, Wisc. on June 8, 1930. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from the University of Wisconsin in 1952 and taught high school English for 23 years, mostly in Santa Barbara. But she loved working at the News-Press best, in the days when the paper was a dynamic expression of community life. McMahon became known for her profiles of movers and shakers, celebrity actors, book authors, chefs, politicians and TV personalities; and she spotlighted the accomplishments of everyday folks, too. Her Rolodex contained the phone numbers of 450 people.

After five top editors resigned from the paper in the summer of 2006, alleging that McCaw was interfering in news gathering and reporting, McMahon joined the Teamsters and threw her support behind the newsroom effort to obtain a union contract. McCaw never signed one, and dozens of reporters and editors quit or were fired under her punitive regime. McMahon stayed on, declaring herself to be the face of the resistance in what was left of the newsroom. In the end, she outlasted the paper by five weeks. – Melinda Burns