Christopher C. Neil, a reporter and news editor for the former Honolulu Advertiser, died Monday at St. Francis Hospice West after a 2 1/2 year battle with lung cancer. He was 56.
Neil grew up in Salisbury, Conn., and attended Kent State University before graduating with a degree in philosophy from Boston University in 1981.
He worked as a commercial photographer in Boston before joining States News Service in Washington, D.C., in 1987, working as a national bureau reporter, covering finance and politics.
During the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988, he met the Advertiser’s then-legislative bureau chief, Jerry Burris, and photographed the Hawaii contingent for the paper.
He moved to Hawaii later that year and took a job at Sun Press, before being hired by the Advertiser in 1989.
A relentless truth-seeker who never ceased to question authority, he brought a strong sense of humanity, justice and fairness to his work, colleagues say.
"Chris always said straight out what he believed and would defend those beliefs, no matter what," said Mike Leidemann, a former colleague at the Advertiser. "He cared passionately about fairness and equality in the world and didn’t easily tolerate people who didn’t share that passion. We disagreed sometimes, but I always thought of him as a friend."
After the Advertiser closed in 2010, he was hired as an English-language copy editor by the Shanghai Daily in China but was unable to work after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
He is survived by wife Nadine Kam, restaurant critic and style editor for the Star-Advertiser; mother Anne (DeMarcken) Neil; brothers Douglas, Keith and Damien; and sister Kirsten (Kiki) Barron.
Private services will be held in Connecticut.
Donations will help establish a scholarship in his name at Kapiolani Community College’s Culinary Institute of the Pacific, in memory of his late friend Alex Lee, whose culinary promise was cut short when he was murdered.
