Two of the founding editorial members of AL DÍA News recently passed away in a car accident in Miami, Florida. Gisela Gil-Egui and her husband José Labrador died last Dec. 30.

Gil Egui, 48, was a professor of communications at Fairfield University and Labrador, 52, was the director of education and technology at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Before starting their respective positions in Bridgeport, they resided in Philadelphia and at the time became some of the first contributors to AL DÍA. Gil-Egui as one of the first reporters and Labrador as the first digital journalists in the media company.

Hernan Guaracao, founder and CEO of AL DÍA News, gave the following statement:

“We would like to acknowledge Gisela, an extraordinary person and a sophisticated journalist who emigrated from Venezuela at a time when fewer college-trained journalists dared to come to North Philly to give us a hand in a rather Quixotic enterprise: To preach the gospel of high-end Journalism, in Spanish, in print, in the most abrupt of the territories.

She did it with humility, quality and grace. I will always remember her standing in the middle of the living room of my home (then our working newsroom), always ready to jump on any assignment for that full-speed train called our weekly edition, maneuvered by just 4 people (all the departments included).

Her husband, José Labrador, who died with her in the accident, became AL DIA's first digital journalist after we moved downtown a few years later. He was a loyal and caring man until his last day with us, when he and Gisela moved to Connecticut to follow the opportunity for her new faculty position.

The news of their tragic passing deeply saddened my wife Elizabeth and I as well as the rest of the AL DÍA family who had the privilege of working alongside these two pioneers. Que en Paz descansen.”