Times Reporter Reginald Smith Dies After Surgery

Reginald Smith, a staff writer for The Times’ Valley Edition, died early Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications after exploratory lung surgery.

Smith, 31, joined The Times in August, 1986, after working as a government and political reporter at the San Diego Evening Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1982, he won the Christopher Award, the San Francisco Press Club’s highest honor, for a story exposing waste and ineptitude in the City Housing Authority.

Smith traveled with the Rev. Jesse Jackson during Jackson’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 1982 and also covered City Hall for the Chronicle. He had “a puckish sense of humor,” said San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. “He was straightforward” as a reporter, she said. “I found I could talk with him.”

A graduate of San Diego State University, where he was editor of the campus newspaper, Smith was a native of Los Angeles. He leaves his parents, Rachel and Elliott Smith Sr.; two sisters, Carol J. DeMorst and Jacqueline A. Winston, and a brother, Elliott Smith Jr. Funeral arrangements are pending.