Longtime Club member Ann D. Schmidt dies

Longtime National Press Club member Ann Downing Schmidt, 85, a correspondent and columnist for the Denver Post and other Colorado newspapers for more than 30 years, died Feb. 10 at her home in Washington.

Schmidt was the widow of Richard Schmidt Jr., an attorney who specialized in media issues and at various times represented the Club, the National Press Foundation, the Society of Professional Journalists and many other journalism organizations.

Schmidt was born in Denver and was a 1947 drama graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. She and her husband were married for 56 years at the time of his death in 2004.

Schmidt began her journalism career in Colorado for the University Park News. After moving to Washington in the mid-1960s she joined the Denver Post in its Washington bureau. After her career as a reporter, she continued until the late 1990s writing a weekly column for the Post, the Longmont Times-Call and the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald. On occasion she also contributed articles to the Colorado Statesman.

In addition to her membership in the Press Club, which she maintained until 2009 and where she was a Silver Owl, Schmidt belonged to the Cosmos Club and the White House Correspondents Association.