Karen Janene Ball

Journalist Karen Ball, whose rapid rise at the Associated Press made her the first woman and youngest person to lead government coverage in the Missouri state capital before moving to national politics and the White House, died Nov. 24 at her home in suburban Kansas City, Mo.

The cause was an apparent pulmonary embolism after years in a wheelchair due to secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She was 62.

As the AP’s lead reporter on Bill Clinton’s 1992 winning campaign for the presidency, Ball “was as competitive as they come,” Sandy Johnson, former Washington AP chief of bureau, recalled in a popular newsletter for the wire service’s staff and alumni. “I remember well when she beat the hundreds of reporters in the hunt for Bill Clinton’s running mate. She could smell it and taste it and she wanted it — and she was first. Sweet, sweet win. Karen was the real deal.”

In tribute messages after her death, many of those competitors also recalled her collegiality, quick wit, and wide smile. Ball was “a terrific reporter, fierce and complete,” wrote Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida on Facebook. “But with a generous, beautiful soul.

Passed over for the spot on the AP’s White House team that would normally have gone to the lead campaign reporter, Ball covered Capitol Hill during the tumultuous rise of GOP revolutionary Newt Gingrich, then joined the New York Daily News as White House correspondent. Ball believed that her snubbing by the wire service arose from concerns among executives about having a young woman continue to cover the notoriously flirtatious Clinton, and she later received an apology from her bureau chief at the time, the late Jon Wolman, according to her husband, author and editor David Von Drehle.

While chronicling Clinton’s world travels, his domestic scandals (some real, others invented by political opponents), and his 1996 reelection campaign, Ball managed to track down and interview the elusive Russian mafia boss Vyacheslav Ivankov. Informed of her scoop before publication, the FBI quickly arrested Ivankov, leading to his 1997 conviction on extortion charges.

After her M.S. diagnosis in 1994, Ball was eventually forced to conclude that she could not balance career, family, and the gradual assault of the autoimmune disease, which attacks the central nervous system and can produce a wide range of disabilities. As novelist Geraldine Brooks observed on Facebook: “Life demanded a lot from Karen.” Ball embarked on a freelance reporting career that saw her work published in the New Yorker, the New Republic, the Washington Post, and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s magazine of politics called George, among other forums.

Ball also set out on a life of civic engagement, helping to lead privately funded campaigns in Washington to renovate the Forest Hills Playground and the historic cupola of Ben W. Murch Elementary School. An avid bargain hunter at thrift stores, Ball delighted in hosting a huge rummage sale each year on her front yard in Northwest D.C. to benefit the playground.

That work continued after she moved with her family in 2007 to Mission Hills, Kansas, part of the Kansas City metro area. Ball chaired school auctions, took in struggling young people, served on the board of an educational philanthropy for underserved youth, and had agreed to be honorary co-chair of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library’s annual fundraising gala in 2024.

Born Sept. 19, 1961, in Kansas City, Ball grew up on the working-class east side, a comparatively diverse neighborhood in a highly segregated city. Her father, J N Ball, was an electrician for the phone company; her mother, Marilyn (Mohler) Ball, worked as an executive assistant after getting her five children into school.

Nicknamed “chatter-chin” by her mother for her relentless delight in storytelling, Ball set her sights on the University of Missouri’s school of journalism, the nation’s oldest. As an editor and star reporter at the student newspaper The Maneater, Ball so excelled in breaking stories and sensitive interviews that her work was featured in a textbook for student journalists.

Her sudden death spoiled her plans to cheer on her beloved Tigers to what became Missouri’s tenth football win of the season later the same day.

Ball is survived by her husband and their four children: Henry, Ella, Addie, and Clara, along with her four siblings: Tammy Adams of Tampa, Joel Ball of Los Angeles, Jeana Lopez of Craig, Mo., and Melanie Ball of Kansas City.

A memorial celebration will be held Dec. 8 at 11 a.m. at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals. A passionate sports fan, Ball was proud that she was one of relatively few girls in her generation who knew how to keep a baseball scorecard, and she treasured memories of attending games at the stadium during both of the Royals’ World Series championships, 1985 and 2015.

(Access Parking Lot M through Gates 1, 6 or 7 and enter the Crown Club through Gate C.)

Charitable donations can be made to an endowed scholarship in Karen’s name to support students in financial need with proven hard reporting skills. Checks made payable to the University of Missouri should be sent to: Office of Advancement, Missouri School of Journalism, 103 Neff Hall, Columbia, MO 65211. Please note that your gift is for the Karen Ball Journalism Scholarship.

A deeply frugal woman, Karen would also be pleased if friends just put a few extra bucks into savings.