Former Santa Clarita Publisher Lost in River

Darell Phillips, a former publisher of the Signal of Santa Clarita, is presumed dead after falling into a swift-moving creek in Central California earlier this week, authorities said.

The search will resume Saturday for Phillips, 62, who was publisher of the daily newspaper for eight years until he resigned last June to pursue other business interests.

A rescue team searched seven hours Tuesday before Calaveras Sheriff’s Deputy Brent Harrington declared Phillips “officially missing and presumed dead.”

On Thursday, two teams from Calaveras County and one from neighboring Tuolumne County searched the Calaveritas Creek in hopes of finding Phillips’ body, but they were hampered by bad weather and high water, said Jeanne Boyce, a spokeswoman for the Calaveras County Office of Emergency Services.

“There is a large amount of silt, mud, logs and a lack of access where they need to search,” Boyce said.

Some articles of clothing and an inhaler Phillips carried were discovered on Wednesday, she said. But crews searched a 2-mile stretch without finding the body.

Phillips and his wife were en route to sign final papers to purchase the Calaveras Enterprise newspaper when the accident happened, family members said.

While crossing a footbridge over Calaveritas Creek between San Andreas and Angels Camp, Patsy Phillips decided to turn back because of the rain-swollen condition of the creek.

Phillips continued, losing his footing and falling into the stream. He grabbed onto a barbed wire fence, but the wire snapped and he was swept away.

“We are hoping against hope for a miracle,” said Charles Morris, president of Savannah, Ga.-based Morris Newspaper Corp., which owns the Signal and the Manteca Bulletin, where Phillips was publisher until July.

“Darell and I have always had a good working relationship. He’s an outstanding newspaperman. If the worst comes to pass, he will surely be missed.”

John Boston, longtime columnist for the Signal, said he was stunned and “a little angry” at the news.

“Why on earth would a 63-year-old man be wading waist high in flood waters?” Boston asked rhetorically. “It’s like, Jiminy Christmas, what are you thinking?”

Boston described Phillips as “larger than life” and a fair boss. When an underling suggested a dress code for newspaper employees, Phillips argued that even he couldn’t follow it.

“We used to laugh about forming a dress code--he used to kid me about showing up for work in cowboy boots and he would show up in a bowling shirt and jeans,” Boston said.

Phillips graduated from Pepperdine University in Malibu and played minor-league baseball before beginning his journalism career at his hometown newspaper, the Manteca Bulletin, in 1959. He served as a news editor and then managing editor.

In 1965, Phillips left the newspaper to become sports editor at the Modesto Bee. He then started the Manteca News in 1977 for a local developer. Two years later, he returned to the Bulletin as publisher.

Boston said Phillips was publisher of the Bulletin and the Signal simultaneously and would visit the Signal every few weeks.

While at the Bulletin, Phillips won California Newspaper Publishers Assn. awards for editorial writing in 1982, 1985, 1986 and 1990. He was president of the CNPA in 1993.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.