Clausen He is an author and professor at the University of San Diego. He lives in Escondido.
I read an article titled “Remembering the San Diegans we lost in 2023” and I recognized some of the names. One thing in particular stood out to him.
Dan Rios, who passed away in September, was a former photographer for both the North County Times and the Times Advocate. I knew him primarily through his wife Alexa’s work as a research historian. Several years ago, she learned about Dan through a local historian and learned that he kept a large collection of newspaper prints and film negatives in his garage. She set about finding a home for the collection.
I hadn’t paid much attention to her project until one day I glanced over her shoulder and saw a photo spread out on her computer screen. When I asked her what it was, she replied: “Those are some of the photos of Dan Rios that I’m going to keep in the university archives.” I told her they looked like her works of art. She answered, “Yes.”
This was the first time I saw Dan’s photo on my wife’s computer screen, and certainly not the last. It took her almost a year to find a place to store these photos at California State University, San Marcos. During and after that effort, we visited Dan frequently and got to know him very well. Over time, I came to appreciate his storytelling skills as much as his photography skills.
He spoke of his love and deep devotion to his mother, who worked in the fields of Fresno and tried to support her family even though she had one prosthetic leg. The work was so hard that one day Dan said to her mother: “If you have to work so hard, why don’t you at least do it somewhere where it’s not hot?” His mother agreed, and her family moved to San Diego. Dan worked as a landscape architect while attending Mesa College and then attended San Diego City University, where he found his calling in photography.
The rest is history. Dan enjoyed the life of a newspaper photographer and cherished the friendships he made with fellow journalists of an older generation. He said many times they would gather at local watering holes at the end of the day to talk about news stories they had covered and photographed.
He liked to tell how he climbed the rickety stairs of a downtown building to get the perfect vantage point to cover the parade. He ignored the fact that ancient structures could collapse beneath his feet at any moment. He told a story on another occasion when he lost his footing and fell down a hill while covering a car accident. He kept taking pictures all the way to the bottom. Only then did he realize that he had broken his wrist falling down a steep hill.
His memory always came back to the other journalists who used to swap stories with him at the end of the day. He described fellow photographer Jim Baird in the Escondido Times Advocate as the first person to “take pictures on 35mm film.” He told Eloise Perkins many of her experiences as they rode around the county together covering news stories. He remembered Lowell Thorpe as a “skilled darkroom technician.” He described Kathryn Russell, with whom he worked on many assignments, as “one of the two most intelligent people I have ever met.” He added: “You have another wife.” (So I quickly got into position.)
Dan savored those friendships and working relationships, and they clearly lived on in his memory.
The last time I met Dan was on July 23, 2022, at California State University San Marcos’ inaugural event honoring him and the collection he donated to the university. Dan spoke with warmth and deep affection of all those who made his life’s work possible and available to future generations.
Afterwards, a reception was held at their home. As his wife and I were leaving, we passed a table where Dan and a few other survivors of his newspaper days had gathered. They shared stories and entertained themselves as a final chance to share their misadventures as newspaper reporters and photographers.
Dan was in his element. He was doing what he loved best. He and several other survivors from journalism’s early days unite, perhaps for the last time, to tell the story of a time when the rewards of being a journalist were limited but the memories were priceless. I enjoyed the friendship.