At left, Nellie Williams worked at the newspaper until she was 100 years old. Center, Wallie Funk and John Webber, on right, are pictured signing papers for the purchase of the Whidbey NewsTimes. At right, Dorothy Neil was a longtime columnist and local historian.
These are the people who made the news By JESSIE STENSLAND jessie@whidbeynewsgroup.com
T
he people who create small-town newspapers are, in many ways, a reflection of the community. Over the 125 years of its existence, a varied assortment of people have contributed to the many papers that came to be known as the Whidbey News-Times — from the paper boys to the press operators to ad salespeople to reporters. They were pillars of the community, colorful local characters and quite a few oddballs. A woman who could become one of the oldest proofreaders in the world and even a future Pulitzer Prize win-
ner worked for the Whidbey NewsTimes. Perhaps the best known of the News-Times alums is Wallie Funk, who is now 93 years old and lives in Anacortes. He wasn’t just an editor, photojournalist and half-owner of the newspaper, but a community leader and philanthropist who continues to make positive change in the community. On Feb. 11, 1965, college buddies Funk and John Webber, who both had owned the Anacortes American, purchased the News-Times and the South Whidbey Record from longtime owners A. Glenn and Phyllis Smith. Funk said Phyllis was really the brains of the operation.
While Funk ran the editorial aspects of the Whidbey News-Times, Webber ran the business side. Funk said Webber was a great guy and a perfect partner, even though he had “an interesting Maine accent.” Reached by phone, Funk said that he absolutely loved being “a newspaper man.” Under his leadership, the paper didn’t shy away from crime and politics, but he said he was also an advocate for the community and a strong supporter of the Navy. Funk was the president of the Navy League for three years. Funk was omnipresent in the community for decades, almost always with his trademark Nikon Supplement to the Whidbey News-Times
camera. He said one of the most noteworthy events he ever covered was the 1970 orca roundup in Penn Cove. He was the first journalist at the extraordinary event and took more than 200 images of the whales trapped in net pens. His photos appeared all over the nation and as far away as the London Times. The amazing photos and stories the Whidbey NewsTimes covered about dead orcas — washed ashore with stones in their stomachs — helped turn the tide toward the protection of the whales. Funk also helped many young journalists get their starts. Perhaps his best hire was Eric Nalder, who went on to became an investiga-
tive reporter for the Seattle PostIntelligencer and has won two Pulitzer Prizes. In a 2007 story about Funk for the University of Washington’s Department of Communication, Nalder recalled that Funk hired him in 1970; he opined that Funk liked that he had long hair, a sport coat and a bad tie. “This was the era of hippies,” said Nalder. “He embraced that.” Nalder covered Island County government. In one early story, he wrote that Prosecutor Ed Beeksma asked the commissioners for more money to be able to attract good attorneys; some things never SEE NEWS PEOPLE. PAGE B7