Posted on: Saturday, July 24, 2004
Journalist Patricia Calhoun Bibby, dead at 43
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Services will be held next month in Southern California for poet and journalist Patricia Calhoun Bibby, who went from two terms as editor in chief of the University of Hawai'i student newspaper to covering the Hawai'i exile of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and then writing movie reviews and celebrity profiles for the Associated Press in New York.
Bibby's career in news began in Hawai'i where her father, Lowe H. Bibby III, served a Navy tour as the weapons officer of the Pacific Fleet's submarine fleet and then returned years later as the commanding officer of the human resources management center at Pearl Harbor. "Buzz" Bibby — as he's known in the Islands — retired as a Navy captain and lives in Kailua with Patricia Bibby's mother, Mary Faris Bibby.
Much later in her career in 1994, Patricia Bibby was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she battled over the next 10 years.
Bibby died on July 8 in Pasadena, Calif., at the age of 43.
She was born on April 16, 1961, in Carmel, Calif., but lived off and on in Hawai'i starting in 1966. Bibby attended Mid-Pacific Institute for one year and spent the last three at Radford High School, graduating in 1979.
At UH, Bibby edited Ka Leo in both her junior and senior years and interned at The Advertiser. After graduation, Bibby was hired by United Press International's Honolulu bureau and immediately impressed her new boss, bureau chief Gordon Sakamoto.
"She was the most wire-service-ready reporter I ever hired," Sakamoto said. "She stepped in the first day and — boom — she knew what to do. She was just out of college but she was very aggressive and she wasn't afraid."
After covering stories in Honolulu for UPI such as the exile of the former Philippines president and first lady, Bibby was hired by the AP in 1988 to work on the national desk in New York.
Three years later, at the age of 30, Bibby was promoted to special features editor and managed a staff of 15 journalists while simultaneously reviewing movies and interviewing celebrities.
In 1998 Bibby was transferred to the AP's Los Angeles bureau, but the cancer forced her to cut short her career as a working journalist. While in Los Angeles, Bibby turned her attention to teaching future journalists as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California.
She also frequently attended Summer Poetry in Idyllwild, an annual poetry seminar in Southern California. The organization has set up a memorial scholarship in Bibby's name.
In addition to her parents, Bibby is survived by her husband, Steven De Salvo; older brother Lowe H. Bibby IV of North Carolina; and older sister Kristen Bibby of San Diego.
Services are scheduled for Aug. 1 at Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge in Southern California. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to: Idyllwild Arts; Attention: Development/Patricia Bibby Memorial Scholarship; P.O. Box 38; Idyllwild, CA 92549.
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8085.
