EVERETT — Stan Strick, a firm, principled leader in The Herald newsroom for more than a quarter century, died Thursday afternoon from complications related to cancer treatment.
Colleagues praised his emphasis on local news.
At The Herald, Strick, 68, rose through the ranks from assistant city editor, city editor and managing editor before being promoted to executive editor in January 1992. “If I had just one word to describe the basic nature of The Herald, its reason for being, the word would be local,” Strick wrote in a column to readers in 2000.
“Stan was the consummate journalist,” said Joann Byrd, Strick’s predecessor as executive editor of The Herald.
Herald readers “were better informed on a whole range of topics because Stan Strick was in the newsroom,” Byrd said.
Strick, of Camano Island, used to spin a yarn about learning a lesson in the importance of local news from a newspaper in Homer, Alaska. He would see the paper in the 1960s when he worked as a reporter for United Press International in Seattle.
“Underneath the masthead that proclaimed it the Homer News was the line, ‘The only newspaper in the world that gives a damn about Homer, Alaska.’ It wasn’t the New York Times, but I’m sure that didn’t matter to anyone in Homer,” Strick said when he was named The Herald’s managing editor in 1982.
Allen Funk, publisher of The Herald, said Strick brought strong ethics and a sharper focus to local news.
“In no small way, Stan’s legacy is a renewed commitment to intensely local news,” Funk said.
Byrd said that she and Strick were partners at The Herald.
“I liked to ruminate over issues before us, but Stan could turn on a dime with a smart solution — a solution we would be glad we implemented. In the years we worked together, Stan was the source of most of the good ideas that improved The Herald’s news report,” she said.
Strick was at times an innovator in news coverage.
When newspapers in the late 1980s began experimenting with personal computers to comb large government databases for possible investigative stories, Strick made sure a Herald reporter received training in the techniques. At the time, only the nation’s largest newspapers were investing in that technology.
Jim Haley, a reporter who worked for The Herald for 42 years before retiring in 2008, watched Strick’s climb to the top. Haley praised his principles.
“Anonymous sources were nearly always forbidden by Stan, who felt the public had a right to know who is saying what,” Haley said. “Exceptions to that rule were few and far between, and only when absolutely necessary. He had very high journalistic standards.”
Strick retired from The Herald on Nov. 2, 2007. He was a reporter at the Seattle Times when he joined The Herald’s Western Sun office in Lynnwood in June 1980. He had previously worked at the Minneapolis Star and had been a reporter, assistant city editor and lifestyle editor. He was on the reporting staff of the San Diego Evening Tribune in the early 1970s, and in the mid-1960s worked for United Press International in Spokane, Seattle and Olympia.
He earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon and did his undergraduate work in sociology at the University of Washington. A Spokane native, he graduated from Gonzaga Preparatory School before enlisting in the Air Force.
Strick had been undergoing treatment at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett for a recurrence of cancer.
Information about funeral services was not available Thursday. He leaves his wife, Janet, on Camano Island, and his loving daughters.
Funk, The Herald’s publisher, said Strick had a good sense of the newspaper’s history and played an important role in its 100th anniversary in 2001. Strick also had a keen eye on the future.
“He was really committed to us making it another 100 years,” Funk said.
Reporter Julie Muhlstein contributed to this story.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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