OBITUARY
Reporter shared her struggles
Kerri Smith elicited much reader response from writing in the Post about her obesity and cancer.
By Mike McPhee
The Denver Post
POSTED: 12/16/2008 12:30:00 AM MST

Kerri Smith, a former Denver Post reporter who struggled mightily, and publicly, with her obesity and then with cancer, died Saturday at her home in Arizona. She was 48.

Smith was a quick, tough, accurate and fair reporter who found that her struggles to drop half of her 460 pounds had become too time-consuming and emotionally draining to continue as a beat reporter. So she took a sabbatical from The Post in 1997 and moved to Los Angeles to work with a team of doctors. She wrote a series of personal stories in The Denver Post about her triumphs and failures, entitled "So Much to Lose, So Much to Gain."

But two years later, she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. She later developed trouble with her lymph system, diabetes and finally severe arthritis that partially immobilized her. Her mother, Bonnie Smith, said eventually her entire immune system "began to crash" and she died of congestive heart failure.

"She lived a magnificent life," said her mother. "At the center of her world remained her writing and her friends."

In a letter to readers, Smith wrote: "There were days when a tender message came at just the right moment. They balanced out the angry and sometimes unbalanced people who (told her) I'm lazy, crazy, stupid or doomed to fail."

She said "several fat women" wrote that her travails sent them to be tested for cancer. Most were cleared but one woman from Maine was not. "The lovely letter she sent me made me cry. I'm so sorry you had cancer but ecstatic you found out in time."

Her death brought a flood of comments from friends and colleagues.

Frank Scandale, metro editor of The Post at the time, said Smith was hesitant at first to write about her struggle. "When it came out, we got more calls and letters than anything else we published in my 10 years at The Post. She was amazing, a great reporter and a great writer. The world is less of a place without her."

Her editor, Cynthia Pasquale, call her "an inspiration. Through her stories, she connected with anyone who struggled with an arduous goal."

Kerri Susan Smith was born in Tucson on Oct. 16, 1960. She attended Cherry Creek schools in Denver and graduated from high school in Gillette, Wyo. She graduated from Arizona State University in 1983. After a stint in the health care industry, she began writing for the Phoenix Business Journal, the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post.

She is survived by her parents, Charles and Bonnie Smith of Mesa, Ariz.; a sister, Katherine Lee Wineteer of Charlotte, N.C.; a brother, Clifford Smith of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; three nephews; and a niece.

Donations may be made in her name to the Denver Women's Press Club scholarship fund or to any animal shelter.Her services are today in Phoenix.