Former Times Assistant Managing Editor Charlotte Burrows dies in Nashville, Tennessee

Pulitzer Prize finalist Charlotte Burrows, 83,  has died in Nashvillle, Tennessee, after fighting Alzheimer's disease for several years.

Burrows worked for The Times from 1959 to 1989. During that time she played a major role in The Times Newsroom where she was a reporter, Sunday Magazine editor and an assistant managing editor. Burrows was the daughter of the late Jack and Mina Burrows. She graduated from the University of Texas.

There will be a graveside service in Nacogdoches, Texas, where Burrows grew up, later this summer, said her brother Bob Burrows, of Franklin, Tennessee. She is also survived by her brother's wife, Martha Burrows; nephew Jeff Burrows; niece Kathryn McClellan; one great niece; two great-great nephews.

Burrows, an assistant  managing editor in the 1970s, was part of The Times Enterprise Team  which investigated the late Shreveport Public Safety Commissioner George D'artois. During the investigation, Caddo grand jury witness and former Times reporter Jim Leslie was shotgunned to death in the back of a motel parking lot in Baton Rouge. His death is a cold case.

The Team was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1976. A Pulitzer jurist wrote the team a letter about the judging in which he which said that he knew "almost" wasn't enough but the paper almost took home the Public Service Award.

Burrows helped form the team and felt it was the best thing the staff did during her years at The Times. "I'm proudest of the D'artois investigation which was an Enterprise effort," Burrows said.

Former Shreveport Mayor John Hussey once read a binder Burrows lent him - put together by former Enterprise Editor/assistant managing editor Lynn Stewart - filled with all the D'artois stories. "It was amazing,'' Hussey said. 

A look at Burrows: 

• Covered the  city hall beat for four years  when Shreveport's legendary Mayor Clyde Fant was serving.  It was her favorite beat.
• She had such good sources that one time a secretary let her borrow a confidential file overnight so she could take notes.
• She was editor for The Times Sunday Magazine at one time in her career.
• Burrows breathed ideas, one after another.
• She could write a readable brief, a complicated enterprise/investigative story and the next day hand in a frothy, fun feature story. Her writing was  crisp and compelling and most readable.

Burrows was an award-winning and  popular Times reporter/editor  whose creative and sometimes unusual stories garnered attention throughout the community. "She was always thorough and fair," said Hussey.

Former Times Chief Photographer Mike Silva considered her a good teacher. "I learned a lot from her. She was full of ideas and we covered at lot of stories."

As Sunday Magazine editor, Burrows edited some of Stewart's stories. " She was precise and always asked a lot of questions!" 

One of her  major contributions to Shreveport was creation of the 1976 Fourth of July Celebration on the Riverfront, which The Times sponsored for several years, said Alan Lazarus, former managing editor of The Times. "She went to the publisher and suggested that The Times start the event and it was approved."