Editor was kind, patient anchor at Statesman
Debra Davis Stanley guided writers with fairness, lack of ego.
Debra Davis Stanley, whose gentle, meticulous hand guided dozens of reporters in her quarter-century as an American-Statesman editor, died Thursday after a yearlong struggle with cancer. She was 55. Stanley leaves behind her husband of 23 years, Dick Stanley, a retired Statesman science reporter, and son, Jack, 15, a sophomore at Anderson High School.
“There is no doubt that Debra was a committed and tenacious journalist who made the Statesman better,” Editor Debbie Hiott said. “But what really stood out about her, in a newsroom full of people like that, was her ability to do that work with the kindest, most patient attitude. She taught dozens of us how to do our jobs with compassion.”
Laylan Copelin, a longtime Statesman Capitol reporter who took a job this year with the Texas A&M University System, had worked for Stanley as a reporter, then was her supervisor as state editor, then again reported to her when he resumed being a reporter. But really, Copelin said, early on they became and remained equal partners in trying to make solid news stories.
Stanley, who professionally went by her maiden name of Davis, “was an anchor in that newsroom for a long, long time,” he said. In a place with more than a few prima donnas — himself included, Copelin said — what distinguished Stanley, aside from her quiet equanimity and always-at-hand yellow legal pad, was her lack of ego and her dedication to the craft of journalism.
“She really had an editor’s personality in that she enjoyed making someone else’s work better,” Copelin said. “She enjoyed seeing our success. And she was probably one of the best word editors I’ve ever seen. She could take your copy and, when she was through, it was better. But it was still your copy.”
Shirl Ware-Gully, a close friend since high school in Salisbury, Md., called Stanley “probably the kindest and most forgiving person I’ve ever met, the most nonjudgmental. ... You couldn’t ask for a better friend.”
Ware-Gully said that Davis fought hard against her disease in part because she wanted to be there for “the love of her life,” her son.
“She was like, ‘I’m too young, it’s not my time yet. I’m going to do whatever I have to do,’” she said.
Stanley, a University of Michigan 1981 honors graduate in journalism, spent her entire career at Texas newspapers, beginning with short stints at the Lewisville News-Advertiser and Denton Record Chronicle. She then worked as a reporter and editor at the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald from 1982 to 1989 before coming to the Statesman as an assistant city editor.
Drew Marcks, a retired Statesman senior editor, had worked with Stanley at the Times Herald and convinced her later to join him at the Austin paper.
“Her personality didn’t enter a room three minutes before she did,” Marcks said. “But she commanded a lot of respect because she listened, she processed. She had a good field of vision for a story, and a sense of fairness. And beneath that very pleasant and kind exterior, she had a reporter’s edge.”
Stanley served as national editor, in charge of wire service stories and stories from the Cox Washington and international bureaus, and state editor, overseeing statehouse and political coverage. She and Dick Stanley, who met in the newsroom, married in 1992. Jack, whose photos graced her always tidy desk, came along eight years later.
For much of the past two years, even as she dealt with non-Hodgkin lymphoma — which went into remission in January but then recurred this summer — Debra Stanley put together the newspaper’s Sunday Insight section and supervised the investigative team.
She worked closely with reporter Jeremy Schwartz on a story about a brain injury research center in Waco operated by the Veterans Affairs Department, detailing how researchers there squandered a unique opportunity to study Fort Hood soldiers before and after their war service in the Middle East.
That September 2014 story won multiple awards and led to congressional scrutiny of the program and the VA in general. Schwartz this month dedicated a Headliners Foundation of Texas award to Stanley.
“We were lucky to have Debra on the investigative team for the years she worked with us,” Schwartz said. “She constantly pushed us to take our projects to new levels while being a trusted ally, sounding board and friend.”
Bill Miller, a longtime political player at the Capitol and founder of Hillco Partners, dealt with Stanley many times over the years as she supervised the Statesman’s coverage of the Legislature.
“She was just a solid, good soul, fair and patient,” Miller said. “Always doing the right thing at the right time in the right way.”
Aside from her husband and son, Stanley is survived by her mother, Sally Broadwater Davis, and her brother, Brian Davis of Watauga, along with two nephews and four nieces.
A memorial service is planned for Nov. 5 at a time and place to be determined later, with a private burial to follow.