Frances R. Mears, longtime AP reporter and manager, dies

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Frances R. Mears, an Associated Press reporter, editor and bureau chief during a journalism career that spanned more than 40 years, has died. She was 66.
Mears had been ill with cancer, according to her husband, Walter R. Mears, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political writer and retired AP vice president.
After more than a decade in newspaper journalism, Fran Mears — then known as Fran Richardson — joined the AP in 1982 in Indianapolis. She served as news