also interned at the Seattle Times and at the Chronicle of Higher Education. He wrote a long-form piece on toxic mining waste blighting the San Xavier Indian Reservation in the Arizona desert for the New York Times Student Journalism Institute in 2010 and in recent years had won a series of news and reporting fellowships and scholarships. His work for the AP from Argentina and Mexico appeared in major outlets coast to coast, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post and at Salon.com. He studied Spanish language and Latin American history and culture at Grinnell and conversationally referenced post-colonial theory in talk about his reporting. He was scheduled to begin graduate school at the University of Barcelona in the fall.

As a multimedia internfor the Colorado Independent during the summer of 2010, Mando covered a midterm GOP primary debate, the legal tribulations of infamous Colorado Springs anti-tax crusader Doug Bruce and dueling national activist tours for and against gay marriage.

A gay Latino who grew up in conservative Colorado Springs, Mando was a naturally empathetic reporter who seemed wise about people beyond his years. He approached stories with a distinctive combination of earnestness and wit that matched his youth but that seemed likely to stay with him for the long haul.

Mando told his colleagues at the Times Student Journalism Institute two years ago, when he was 20 years old, that what interested him was the opportunity to help newsreaders “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.”

In a discussion conducted when he was