News reporter John Accola found human side of stories

Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 27, 2006 at midnight

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John Accola spent his last hours as a reporter in a dilapidated trailer home, listening to a woman whom nobody else could find, in a place few others would think to look.

"It was one of these places where you drive by and say, 'I can't believe somebody actually lives there,' " said Ann Imse, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News who accompanied Accola on the interview in Summit County last Friday.

Within minutes of being invited inside an elderly woman's home, Imse said, the reporters sat over plates of meatballs, mashed potatoes and homemade soup, alongside their notebooks in the place where Accola said he always belonged: face to face, in the middle of someone else's story.

"He spent his last day at work doing what he loved - that's exactly what he said," Imse said. "He said, 'This is what I love about journalism.' "

Accola, a reporter for the News for 22 years, died of an apparent heart attack on Sunday evening. He was 56.

According to family members, Accola complained of heartburn before collapsing at his home near Sedalia. His 13-year-old son, Jake, dialed 911 and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived. Accola was pronounced dead at Sky Ridge Medical Center in Lone Tree.

In more than three decades as a reporter, Accola sat in chairs throughout the newsroom before landing at the business desk. In the past decade he profiled executives worth billions of dollars and broke down intricate corporate scandals into everyday language. He waded through acrimonious estate battles and distilled complicated federal court decisions into universal human drama.

Amid the famous and soon-to-be- infamous, Accola uncovered the tales of people who had never been in the paper - along with those who never wanted to be - and persuaded them to tell their story.

Born in Los Angeles into a military family, Accola spent his youth at addresses in England, Hawaii, Colorado Springs and Illinois.

"He never aspired to be anything but a reporter," said his father, Jake Accola, of Colorado Springs, who remembered his son's interest surfacing when he attended high school in England.

Accola graduated from Southern Illinois University with a degree in journalism but couldn't find a job, his father said. At a time when many frustrated graduates donned backpacks and headed for Europe, Accola went one continent farther - pairing up with two mechanically inclined Australians and traveling through Africa in a VW bus.

The immersion technique served him well for the next few years as he found work in the mid-'70s at the now-defunct Colorado Springs Sun, followed by a job at the Idaho Statesman.

He started work at the News on June 18, 1984 - the same day that radio talk-show host Alan Berg was killed by members of a neo-Nazi group.

"He didn't get any kind of orientation or easing-in period. He was just thrown into the breach," said reporter Kevin Flynn, who remembered the day - along with the subsequent scoops and headlines that accompanied Accola's byline.

With an easygoing laugh that accompanied the beginning and end of most conversations on and off the job, Accola managed to disarm fugitives and scam artists, while at the same time comforting their victims.

"He always ended everything with that little laugh," reporter Gary Gerhardt said. "He dismissed you with it, but it wasn't dismissive. It was the last laugh. That, we all share."

Even as technological advancements overtook the newsroom, Accola feigned ignorance of cell-phone voicemail to encourage more face-to-face meetings. He most recently reported on a series exploring issues around immigration.

Amid the searing rhetoric, one source said, he discovered previously unheard voices.

"John was so genuinely interested in how things really worked for real people that I think he broke a lot of negative stereotypes that many of us had about reporters," wrote immigration attorney Carol B. Lehman in an e-mail. "We came to trust that he would not misuse the information we shared, and he showed us we were justified in that trust."

On his beat at the federal courthouse, Accola often discovered stories near the end of the day. Despite the easy-reading stories that greeted readers the next morning, he struggled with nearly every one.

"John was terrible at making deadline. Just terrible. After nightly coaxing, he got everything in, but it was always the last story in. He just pined over every word, every fact," said business editor Rob Reuteman. "It was really painful for John to write. Really painful. He had to drag it out of himself. But it was so good. He brought it home."

Accola found solace in the outdoors - hiking, gardening, and cross-country skiing - and most recently lived on 14 acres of land near Sedalia, that he purchased in part to remain close to his parents, Jake and Mary Accola, along with his own family. There, he planned to eventually retire with his wife, Marlene, and son, Jake, with whom he spent much of his spare time.

He is also survived by a stepson, Bryan Joslin, and a stepdaughter, Andrea Joslin. Services are pending.

"We went on a lot of trips together, and the last summer we would go to this one river in the mountains and just relax," son Jake said. "(This summer) we were going to go hiking a lot and spend time on the river."

Monday, a single yellow rose rested on Accola's keyboard at the newspaper, surrounded by piles of files that spilled over his desk and filled nearly every inch of floor space - all the work that few readers see and that Accola couldn't bear to toss.

On his last day on the job on Friday, Accola ended the day by leaving another story of his own.

At the end of their interview in the trailer, the elderly woman told the reporters that the trailer was slated for demolition, and she needed to transfer her things to a small apartment.

"He said, 'We'll help you move,' " Imse said.

"She didn't believe it - until we started loading her stuff into the Jeep."

Soon, Imse plans to complete Accola's final story. Not all the notes from that day are in her reporter's notebook.

"It was a beautiful, beautiful sunny day . . . a rare day out, not working at the desk, meeting people face to face, not on deadline," she said.

"He laughed a lot that day."

sheelerj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2561.

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