With the death yesterday of Fernando Pérez Ollo (Pamplona, 1939), an unrepeatable journalist, a master of journalists and a conscientious and encyclopedic writer disappears. He studied Journalism at the University of Navarra between 1965 and 1968, in a class that also included Jesús Ceberio (later director of EL PAÍS), Ángel Arnedo (later director of El Correo), Justino Sinova and José Luis Orosa. He had joined the essay of Diario de Navarra on December 28, 1963, before the beginning of the degree program. He made his debut with an event -an accident with a death in the town of Gulina- and in a few years he was already fluent in all genres.

Music criticism was perhaps his most constant specialization program , but he wrote chronicles of all calibers, memorable interviews, ethnographic reports and hundreds of editorials, including the one that opened the edition of August 23, 1980, a few hours after ETA riddled José Javier Uranga -the director of Diario de Navarra- with bullets at the newspaper's car park . Fernando Pérez Ollo was the acting director during the very long convalescence of his colleague. He combined his work at essay with teaching, and between 1968 and 1983 he taught at the University of Navarra the keys to journalistic writing to several generations of future professionals. He also wrote books on a wide range of subjects - the hermitages of Navarra, the place bullfighting of Pamplona, landscape tours... -, coordinated the Gran Enciclopedia Navarra and collaborated in many of the cultural initiatives that came his way. Seven years ago, when he turned 65, he decided to continue working for the newspaper. Many of the editorials that came out of his pen in this extension of his working life have offered Diario de Navarra readers a rigorous compass to navigate with certain guarantees in the often rough sea of current affairs.

However, those who have had the good fortune to know Fernando Pérez Ollo more closely will not remember him for his erudition or his oceanic report but for the affection he showed to those closest to him, regardless of their origin or condition. He could talk face to face with a Full Professor of Latin, with an academician of the language or with the manager of the file Diocesan , but also with the owner of a legendary cattle ranch, with a shepherd weathered by all the winds of the Bardena or with the last scholarship recipient arrived at the essay.