OFF PAGE ONE
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
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“I apparently was ready
to settle down, because Wal-
lowa County — and the
Chieftain — has been my
home ever since mid-Sep-
tember 36 years ago,” she
wrote in a farewell column
when she retired in 2014.
Legacy of accuracy
Early on, and through the
years, Dickenson became a
reporter sources knew they
could rely on. Multiple peo-
ple who spoke to the Chief-
tain about Dickenson com-
mented about her accuracy
— though they admitted
to being unsure when they
watched her taking notes.
“She would look at you
and scribble at the same
time,” said Rich Wandschnei-
der, library director at the
Josephy Center for Arts and
Culture. “The scribble would
be two or three lines. You
thought, ‘...What is going to
happen with this?’ When the
piece came out, she had you
quoted correctly. She picked
out the things to emphasize
better than I could have done
myself.
“I don’t remember anyone
ever saying Elane Dicken-
son misquoted them. Maybe
it happened, but I don’t
remember.”
Wandschneider’s descrip-
tion is one Herman said she
heard repeated throughout
the years.
“A lot of people have said
this. … There was a feeling
while you’re talking to her
(of) ‘Is (she) going to get this
story right?’” Herman said.
“She would be able to sit
down and write these beau-
tiful stories. If you love the
people you are writing about,
it comes out.”
Her eff orts showed. Ange-
lika Dietrich, who worked
with Dickenson at the Chief-
tain for four years and became
a close friend during that time
and after, recounted her dili-
gence in poring over stories
to make sure they were cor-
rect and sounded the way she
wanted.
“As far as work, what
always comes to mind, she
never went home until the job
(was) done,” Dietrich said.
“If she didn’t like a story, she
would go through it over and
over again.”
Darlene Turner, who often
worked with Dickenson in
coverage of Chief Joseph
Days, said she went into each
interview either knowing the
topic or the people very well,
and she was an easy individ-
ual to be interviewed by.
“She could write stories
better than most of them,”
Turner said. “Just being able
to do it year after year after
year, she learned what it takes
to write a good story, and I
admire anybody that can put
it down in words and how she
expressed herself.”
Caring about the
community
Elane Dickenson was
not a fan of covering sports,
according to her daughter,
but she would nonetheless
cover any game assigned to
her with the same diligence
as she would a council meet-
ing, a feature or a breaking
news article.
Jenny Herman/Contributed Photo
Elane Dickenson, center in the blue shirt, poses for a photo with her family in 2019. Dickenson was a Chieftain reporter for
nearly 36 years, retiring in 2014.
In fact, the breadth of what
she covered spoke volumes
to the community, including
Susan Roberts, who currently
is a county commissioner and
was mayor of Enterprise pre-
viously. Roberts said Dicken-
son was well-received in the
community because of the
eff ort she put into her career.
“I believe that was prob-
ably mostly because she did
work hard,” Roberts said.
“She’d show up at things you
wouldn’t think people would
show up at. She was just a
hard worker. Beyond that,
she cared about the people
she wrote about.
“I think that’s an amazing
thing. Caring about the com-
munity and getting the story
right. … In today’s world,
that doesn’t come through all
the time. People recognized
she cared about this commu-
nity she lived in and raised
her kids in.”
Dickenson described the
range of what she covered in
her 2014 sign-off column.
“My fi rst couple weeks
on the job I covered a plane
wreck, a grocery store explo-
sion, the sale of a sawmill,
Alpenfest, a suicide and a car
accident, and in many ways
the pace has never slowed,”
she wrote. “Working with an
ever-changing cast of colorful
characters and good friends,
I’ve covered 35 years-plus
of meetings, controversies,
events, crimes, happy news,
tragic news and always Wal-
lowa County news and Wal-
lowa County people. I’ve
written up weddings, obitu-
aries, engagements, gradua-
tions, business openings, new
teachers, elections, parades,
art festivals, trials, car shows,
rodeos, Out of the Past and
even an ‘It’s All Relative’
column for a time. I’ve even
been known to cover a sports
event or two.
“I was run over by a mule
at the fi rst-ever Mule Days
and sent to Las Vegas to
cover the Miss Rodeo Amer-
ica pageant. I’ve been rained
on, lost, stuck in the snow,
sunburned.”
“There (were) the cyclical
things, the dog sled races, the
bank robbery (reenactment),
things you’re reporting on
year after year,” Herman
said. “And then new things.
The school play was always
Jenny Herman/Contributed Photo
Elane Dickenson, center, fl anked by her daughter, Jenny
Herman, and son, Matt Dickenson.
diff erent. She really did care
about all those things and all
the details of the community,
she really cared about it.”
Remarkably, she found a
way to balance her job with
raising her two children —
Matt was born in 1984 — on
her own as a single mother.
Herman said life revolved
around the weekly “cadence”
of the Chieftain — which at
the time was published on
Thursdays. She said she grew
up at the Chieftain, even help-
ing stuff ads into papers as a
youth along with everyone
else on the staff — including
Dickenson.
“My mom really just took
such pride in telling the sto-
ries of the community. She
was at every single event, so
every single person knew her.
As a teen, I didn’t love that
because my mom was every-
where taking pictures all the
time. I was like she is always
there, always has her cam-
era and notebook. She doc-
umented (events) for all my
friends, and all my friends’
kids who lived there.”
It was a full slate. But
all the events she covered,
chronicling Wallowa County
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history, she did so without
complaint, Wandschneider
said.
“She was the quintessen-
tial working mom. Every
time you saw her, she was
working,” Wandschneider
said. “My son was in plays
with her daughter, which
she covered, of course. You
remember Elane as always
having that pencil and that
pad. Her contribution to the
community I think, she felt,
was that. There was no hard
line between her position
as a Chieftain reporter and
her position as a community
member. She covered it all.”
Genuine and caring
While she was remem-
bered by many as a reporter
with a high level of integrity,
perhaps more importantly,
she was recalled as being a
genuine, caring person.
That, too, showed in her
writing.
“She was an angel with-
out the wings,” Dietrich said.
“That’s the fi rst thing that
comes to mind. And she was
in absolute love with the com-
munity. She loved every-
one in Wallowa County, and
to report on the news of the
county was so important to
her. She would make it per-
sonal. It’s almost indescrib-
able the way she was, and I’m
not trying to exaggerate her,
that’s just her.”
Wandschneider called her
a woman who had a “gen-
erous spirit,” while Roberts
said she carried a true sense of
empathy.
“Her innate kindness, it
showed,” Roberts said. “...
She was not a true empath,
but close. She really felt what
you were feeling. I think that
was why she was good at writ-
ing. When she was talking to
someone ... she could feel
that.
“Most of us can project
sympathy, but very few of us
can do empathy; you either
are or you aren’t (able to).
And most of us aren’t. She
was.”
Her ability to truly care
about what a subject was feel-
ing in the middle of a diffi cult
scenario also showed.
“When she had to write a
heartbreaking story of a trag-
edy, She really cared about
that,” Herman said. “She
really loved the community.”
County historian
When Dickenson retired
in August 2014 — two
weeks shy of 36 years at the
Chieftain — the paper lost a
person who became a county
historian.
“I’ve learned to love
local history and it makes
me happy to know that I’ve
helped record the history
of the county for almost 36
years, week-by-week, as it
was unfolding,” she wrote in
her fi nal column in 2014.
One of her longtime
tasks was compiling Out of
the Past, which currently is
a look back 25, 50, 75 and
100 years ago, though those
timelines have varied.
Dickenson took it a step
further, and put together an
index to help pinpoint diff er-
ent events and where to fi nd
them in the bound volumes
of the Chieftain archives.
“It’s a weekly history les-
son. It’s good for the com-
munity,” Swart said of Out of
the Past. “It carries the com-
munity knowledge forward.
She really was a student of
Wallowa County history.”
A5
One recent history item
she recorded — and, indeed,
one of the biggest days of
the past 20 years — was
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks.
Her daughter was living
and working in New Jersey
at the time, across the Hud-
son River from New York
City. As often was the case
that day, there was much
concern in the minds of
those who had family in the
area and who couldn’t reach
them. The two fi nally con-
nected, and talked, Herman
recalled, for two hours.
Two days later, the Chief-
tain came out, and Herman
was surprised to see portions
of that conversation in her
mom’s article about locals
impacted by the attack.
“You have to understand,
I’m a news person,” Herman
recalled of what her mom
told her when they talked
later.
Herman said while she
was shocked in the moment,
“Honestly now, reading back
over those, I’m glad she cap-
tured some of the things I
said to her that day.”
While also an accurate
writer, both Herman and
Swart said she was an excel-
lent photographer, as well.
“She just had a good eye,”
Swart said.
“Her photography was so
incredible. I’m grateful for
all of the photos,” Herman
said.
Always positive
Dietrich,
Dickenson’s
colleague and close friend,
said she was always able to
put a positive spin on what-
ever was going on in her
own life and that she was not
one to complain.
“Elane would never go
negative,” Dietrich said.
“She always (made) some-
thing positive out of a chal-
lenge. I always admired
Elane for always making
something positive out of a
challenge or what could be a
negative.”
Herman described her
mom as a woman who
would not cast judgment on
another, and would not speak
a harsh word to or about
another.
“She was — and I have
done this quite a bit because
she changed so much over
her time of being sick — she
is so smart, so warm, very
open, not judgmental at all.
She has pretty strong views
on political views, but very
nonjudgmental and open,”
she said. “She always had
a messy house and a messy
desk, but didn’t notice it, and
wouldn’t notice yours. She
didn’t really see that. She
really saw people for who
they were, what kind of peo-
ple they were. The rest was
extra that she didn’t notice.”
Roberts called her “a very
kind, very nice person.”
“She was the kind of per-
son most people think we
are, but aren’t,” Roberts
said. “Very kind, and she had
a really great sense of humor
if you were around her long
enough to get it out of her.”
Leaving a mark
Swart said the length
of time Dickenson worked
at the Chieftain stood
out to him more than any
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