Post-Gazette reporter dies at 49

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Tom Gibb, a reporter who covered Pennsylvania for 26 years, including the crash of United Flight 93 and the rescue of nine miners trapped in a coal mine, died Friday. He was 49.
Gibb, who had worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1998, died of organ failure at a Pittsburgh hospital two weeks after suffering a heart attack.
Colleagues and co-workers said they would remember Gibb for his tenacity, humor, pathos and knack for finding quirky stories amid the mountains of central Pennsylvania.
"Tom was really one of the giants of journalism in central Pennsylvania over 25 years," said longtime friend and former co-worker Neil Rudel, sports editor of the Altoona Mirror. "He was the hardest working journalist I've ever known. ... There was no story he wasn't ready to do."
Background
Born in Ebensburg, Gibb began his career with the Altoona Mirror in 1976 and 11 years later became the paper's city editor.
After a brief stint as managing editor, Gibb left the Mirror in 1993 and free-lanced for newspapers and The Associated Press before joining the Post-Gazette in 1998.
"We've lost a person of depth and a journalist of range. We and his family are the poorer, but so, too, is everybody who reads the Post-Gazette," said David M. Shribman, executive editor of the newspaper.
Gibb is survived by twin older brothers and his companion, Kay Stevens, whom he met when both worked at the Altoona Mirror.