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JANUARY 2013
TWN
PASSINGS
Retired Peninsula Daily News photographer dies at 64 Peninsula Daily News, Port Angeles
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or more than 30 years, Tom Thompson captured the North Olympic Peninsula through a camera lens and won awards for photos ranging from a stark image of the fallen Hood Canal Bridge to an offbeat photo of a horse nibbling on its owner’s neck. The retired chief photographer of the Peninsula Daily News did it all with a smile on his face, a calming influence and a keen eye for the right moment and the perfect shot as he covered every kind of news — from parades to disasters, from fires and car accidents to City Council meetings and high school sports. Thompson died Nov. 28 at his home in Port Angeles surrounded by family members after suffering a brain aneurysm. He was 64. He retired from the PDN in August 2007 after 33 years and began a successful second career with his own construction business and property development company, Clear Horizon LLC. “Tom was the consummate professional and a highly respected, beloved colleague,” said John Brewer, PDN publisher and editor. “He made us a better newspaper. He didn’t need words to communicate; his camera work alone would take you to the heart of the story. “His personnel file is filled with letters from readers complimenting the photos he took. Parents especially loved his photos of their children. “He was so well-liked in the community that he was an ambassador for the newspaper,” Brewer added. “And he carried his talents and outstanding craftsmanship into his general contracting business, making sure his customers
LEFT PHOTO: Tom Thompson / Peninsula Daily News, Port Angeles; RIGHT PHOTO: Dave Logan / For Peninsula Daily News LEFT: The first public view of the fallen Hood Canal Bridge, which sank during a powerful storm in 1979, came in this photograph by Tom Thompson. RIGHT: Tom Thompson, right, receives a proclamation of appreciation in August 2007 from the Clallam County Board of Commissioners on his retirement from Peninsula Daily News in Port Angeles. The proclamation saluted Thompson’s photo work and was presented by Steve Tharinger, then chairman of the commissioners and now a state representative.
always got a great job done for a fair price.” Many of his photos were transmitted by The Associated Press — the PDN is a contributor to this news service, the world’s largest — and were published by other newspapers nationwide. His photos also received awards from AP and from Sigma Delta Chi-Society of Professional Journalists. Fellow PDN staffers marveled at his even temperament despite tense deadline situations. “He never raised his voice,” said Executive Editor Rex Wilson. “He had this calming way about him. He was always in control, always fully prepared when on assignment. “He had a big-picture view of life and of his craft.” Said Keith Thorpe, who worked with Thompson and is now PDN chief photographer, “Tom knew everyone, and he’d
been just about everywhere — he was the elder statesman of photography on the Peninsula.” Thompson was the first photographer to reach the scene when hurricane-force winds sank the west half of the Hood Canal Bridge on Feb. 13, 1979. He recalled a white-knuckle drive from Port Angeles, driving through buffeting winds and dodging fallen trees and debris strewn across state Highway 104 in Jefferson County. He found that the steel transfer span that once led from the land span to the rest of the floating bridge was in the canal. The west half of the bridge was gone, and off in the distance, the east half was still afloat. “The sun was breaking through the clouds enough to provide the light I needed for photography, but it was still an eerie feeling to be aware of the clouds overhead that had been a
part of the storm that could do so much damage,” Thompson recalled in a 2009 interview. Thompson stomped through brambles to capture the right angle and quickly left to make his 11 a.m. deadline for what was then an evening newspaper. “After I took some more shots from the southern side of the bridge to illustrate the damaged span and the open gap where the bridge used to be, I rushed back to my car. “I threaded my way back through the maze of debris and made it back to the office with just enough time to process my film and produce three or four quick prints, and the presses rolled shortly after.” The photo was sent to AP and appeared in newspapers from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to the New York Times. Thomas A. Thompson was born May 30, 1948, in Seattle. He worked for AP in Seattle
as a lab technician and part-time photographer before joining the PDN in May 1974. He also attended Peninsula College and received an associate degree in journalism in 1998. At his PDN retirement party in 2007, he said he felt “very blessed in my career to enjoy my craft, live in a place surrounded by beautiful geography, work with some great people, create some rewarding images and to see many changes.” His survivors include his wife, Diane; stepmother Grace Thompson of Moses Lake; two brothers, Joe and Roger Thompson of Helena, Mont.; sons Wade and Scott of Federal Way; daughter Brooke Nelson of Port Angeles, a member of the City Council; stepchildren Lisa Lovern and Michael Cooper of Lynnwood; 10 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Press’s veteran sports editor ‘Bob’ Taylor passes at 63 Issaquah Press
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obert L. “Bob” Taylor, former longtime sports editor of the Issaquah Press, died Christmas Eve morning, Dec. 24, 2012, at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. He was 63. Taylor, of Renton, was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, and was battling that and leukemia at the time of his death. He wrote about his illness many times in the Press.
He married his wife, the former Pauline Namit, who he called his best friend, in 1976, and she was his main caregiver in his last years. Bob Taylor He was very proud of his adult son, David, a University of Washington graduate. Family meant everything to him. He
also loved his dog, Katie. Taylor was half Finnish and proud of his heritage. He was born Oct. 4, 1949, in Vancouver, Wash., to Hilda (Kopra) and Layton Taylor, and raised on a farm in Southwest Washington. He loved listening to music, especially jazz and big band music, and he had a keen interest in history, especially the Civil War, colonial times and the Old West. He also enjoyed fishing, genealogy, reading, writing, cooking, baseball card collecting and baseball historical research. He loved to tell stories, often turning a short topic into a long one, and people loved to hear him tell them. He was a positive person, no matter the circumstances, and he remained upbeat despite his illnesses. Taylor’s career began in 1972, when he graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor’s degrees in journalism and history. He was hired by the weekly Bellingham Metropolitan and started that job the day of his graduation. Taylor went on to become sports editor at the Bellingham Herald for two years.
He covered the World Series in 1974. He then worked in Colorado for seven months before returning to the Evergreen State. For almost 20 years, Taylor covered sports for the nowdefunct Journal-American (later called the Eastside Journal), a daily newspaper based in Bellevue. Although he worked the Seattle Mariners’ beat on three different occasions, the University of Washington football beat for two years and a year with the Seattle Sounders, most Eastside readers will remember him as a high school sports writer and “living encyclopedia of Eastside sports.” After a stint as a teacher (Taylor had substituted in the Issaquah, Renton, Bellevue and Snoqualmie Valley districts and the Archdiocese of Seattle), and a stopover at the Whidbey Island News-Times in Oak Harbor, he had covered prep sports for the Press since May 22, 2000. He retired this past March with plans to write books. Outside of sports, Taylor made an impact on Issaquah with his “Faith in Focus” series,
introducing readers to many of the religious congregations and pastors in the area. He also wrote many features about various topics, and he loved telling the stories of veterans. He also volunteered his time and love to special-needs children. Taylor won many awards for editorial performance, reporting, writing and public service. In 1990, he was recognized for his volunteer work with the Bellevue School District. In 1993, he received an honorary diploma from St. Joseph’s Indian School in South Dakota. In 1996, he received the Spirit of the KingCo Conference award, and the JournalAmerican sports section was named one of the top 10 daily sports/special sections. Taylor won many Washington Newspaper Publishers Association and Society of Professional Journalists awards for his stories and columns in the Press. He was to be presented with another award Jan. 19 at the Washington State Track and Field Coaches Convention.