PASSINGS: Dave Cox, Paul Leo Locatelli

Dave Cox

Republican state senator

Republican state Sen. Dave Cox, 72, who served as minority leader of the Assembly from 2001 to early 2004, died Tuesday at his home in the Sacramento suburb of Fair Oaks. He had prostate cancer.

Cox represented the sprawling 1st Senate District, a heavily Republican area that encompasses parts of 12 Sierra and foothill counties from the northeastern tip of California at the Oregon border to Mammoth Lakes in Mono County.

His death leaves two vacancies in the 40-member chamber. Republican Abel Maldonado left to become lieutenant governor in April.

Cox was elected to the Senate in 2004 after six years in the Assembly. He had previously served six years as a Sacramento County supervisor and before that was a board member of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Cox was born Feb. 20, 1938, in Holdenville, Okla. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of San Diego and a master’s from Golden Gate University. He maintained a life insurance business while holding public office.

Paul Leo Locatelli

Chancellor, former president of Santa Clara University

Paul Leo Locatelli, 71, the chancellor and former president of Santa Clara University, died Monday of pancreatic cancer.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in business from Santa Clara University and a doctorate from USC, Locatelli became an accounting professor at the Jesuit campus in 1974 and became its 27th president in 1988.

Officials say that during Locatelli’s 20 years as president, the university saw a construction boom and a tenfold increase in its endowment.

After stepping down as president, he served the Jesuits in Rome, helping to coordinate the order’s universities.

A native of Santa Cruz, Locatelli worked for his father’s lumber business in Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains and became the first member of his family to go to college. He said he chose the Jesuit order after he served in the Army and “started thinking there was something more in life.”

He attended the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley and was ordained as a priest in 1974.

— Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com