NEWTON ? Medford Logsdon, photo editor of The Newton Kansan, has been killed in a traffic accident.

The head-on collision late Tuesday afternoon was fatal to Logsdon, 36, of Elbing, and Joyce Hett, 72, of Marion, driver of the other vehicle. Hett was dead at the scene, and Logsdon died several hours later at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.

Harvey County Undersheriff Steve Bayless said Logsdon’s minivan apparently drifted left of the center line and collided with Hett’s car. The minivan crashed into a bridge abutment, and the car went into a ditch.

Sheriff Byron Motter said it was unclear why Logsdon’s van veered left of center.

Logsdon, father of three daughters, had been with The Kansan for five years.

“He was a member of our family,” said publisher Dave Phillips. “We deal with other people’s tragedies every single day. It’s ironic that we have our own tragedy, but we still have to deal with the other tragedies.”

Logsdon recently won a first-place award from the Kansas Press Association for his first-person account of playing Santa Claus at Wal-Mart.

“He was the face of The Kansan,” said Marathana Prothro, a former reporter at the newspaper. “He covered a lot of ground. At ball games, community festivals, he was always in the background. He shot every athletic event and made sure everybody got their chance.”