The executive editor instrumental in earning the Washington Daily News its Pulitzer Prize in 1990 has died.

William J. Coughlin, 91, died May 8, in Bolivia, N.C. Coughlin was a resident of both Southport, N.C., and County Kerry, Ireland. A fighter pilot in World War II, a war correspondent during the Korean War, Vietnan War, the 1956 Suez Canal war and the Turkish invasion of Cypress, a foreign policy advisor to a U.S. Senator, author of two books with the third that was to be published this year — Coughlin lived a storied life. But at the age of 69, his highly successful career hit an unexpected high after he was hired as executive editor at the Washington Daily News.

“Bill Coughlin was a respected journalist before he came to the Washington Daily News in 1989. He had worked at some major newspapers across the country, but he hit the pinnacle of his career when he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990. And he had to come to one of the smallest newspapers in the country to do it,” said Mike Voss, who worked with Coughlin on the story that put Washington in the national spotlight.

At the time, Brownie Futrell was the Daily News’ publisher. Futrell said it was Coughlin’s attention to detail that brought the contamination story to light.

“The way the whole Pulitzer story started was that Bill Coughlin was paying his water bill at City Hall and he looked down and read the writing on the bill, ‘Results of our water tests are available upon request,’” Futrell said.

Coughlin came back to the newsroom, put the bill on the table and said, ‘Somebody request the test results,’” according to Futrell.

A few weeks would go by before the results were requested. Still more would pass while environmental engineers, at the request of the Daily News, were making sense of a list of chemicals in parts per million, a list in the city’s report that came with no interpretation. To those who worked at the Daily News, it was Coughlin’s leadership that fostered the environment where the story of Washington’s carcinogenic water supply could be told.

“One thing is for absolutely certain in my mind, is that without Bill Coughlin as our executive editor, there certainly would not have been a Pulitzer Prize for the Daily News,” said Betty Mitchell Gray, who, along with Voss, reported the story. “His directorship was crucial in that endeavor. … He had the experience, the expertise —he just … he knew how to do it.”

“It was his attention to detail, his tenacity and his leadership that directly led us to being in a position that we covered the water crisis and that led to the Pulitzer,” Futrell said.

Futrell described both the Daily News’ hiring of Coughlin and his taking the job as a leap of faith for both parties — Coughlin had an incredible resume; he was 69 years old; he’d never run a small-newspaper before.

“But it was a good match and led to some extraordinary outcomes,” Futrell said.

“He was a sharp character. One of the old-time, crusty, the epitome of that era, newsmen,” Gray said. “He was a heck of a good newsman.”