Award-winning POST SOUTH journalist passes away

Award-winning journalist and longtime Plaquemine POST SOUTH employee Deidre Cruse passed away earlier this week.

Cruse achieved an unprecedented five La. Press Assn. Gibbs Adams Awards for Investigative Reporting. She claimed the most recent 2010 award and joined with the POST SOUTH staff in winning the 2010 Editorial Sweepstakes (Best Editorial) and Best Newspaper Award.

Cruse previously was a reporter for THE MORNING ADVOCATE in Baton Rouge and other publications. She had been with the POST SOUTH for over 20 years of service and came from a family involved in the newspaper business in the Winnsboro area of the state.

In addition to the Gibbs Adams Awards, she won countless awards for her reporting in other LPA and National Newspaper Assn. competition categories.

She was well known on the city hall, parish, and courthouse beat in Iberville Parish as the POST SOUTH Governmental Reporter.

Funeral arrangements were pending as of this article deadline.