Powers, beloved journalist, dies at 93

Dorothy Rochon Powers, whose enterprising journalism often focused on people in need during a four-decade career at The Spokesman-Review, died early Saturday. She was 93.

Powers won numerous awards and broke many barriers for women at a time when men dominated journalism. She grew to become Spokane’s most recognizable and – likely – beloved journalist.

“I think Dorothy will probably be remembered as one of the legendary figures of Northwest journalism,” said former Spokesman-Review editorial board member Steve Witter. “She was an investigative reporter well before the term was invented.”

Powers was energetic and passionate about her work. Shaun O’L. Higgins, who was an assistant managing editor when Powers was in the newsroom, said she strived for quality.

“She was tireless in her efforts to do things right,” Higgins said. “I never met anyone who wasn’t impressed with her energy and devotion.”

Though she wasn’t afraid to give her opinions, former opinion page editor Doug Floyd said he never saw her mad.

“When she got angry about something it was usually an issue of principle,” he said. “She was just very firm about her opinion.”

She shared those opinions about the newspaper even after she retired.

“She would let editors and let members of the Cowles family know when she thought things were not being done properly,” Higgins said, referring to the family that owns the newspaper.

Powers had been in declining health in recent years and suffered a fall last week, said longtime friend Dennis Murphy of Heritage Funeral Homes.

She was born Oct. 9, 1921, in Alberta, Canada, where her parents, both of whom worked as educators, lived briefly. The family moved to Anaconda, Montana, when Powers was 2 years old. Her mother, who gave up a principal position to raise her children, read the classics to Powers and her older brother, Ned. Both parents loved the written word. They were insistent on good grammar, Powers said in a 1988 interview.

Powers’ mother died when Powers was just 7. Some townspeople hinted that the children should be placed into an orphanage, but Powers’ father wouldn’t hear of it. He devoted his life to his children.

This early, crushing loss gave Powers increased sensitivity to the suffering and vulnerability of others, a sensitivity that defined her writing style throughout her four decades at The Spokesman-Review. But it also made her tough.

“It made me self-sufficient,” she said in 1988. “I learned to compete and think in a male-dominated world.”

When Powers attended the University of Montana in the early 1940s, she was told to switch majors because “girls” shouldn’t be journalists. Instead, she became news editor for the college newspaper and in her senior year applied to three newspapers.

The Spokesman-Review sent her a telegram: “Come at once.” World War II was on. She arrived June 10, 1943.

Soon Powers was featured in a newspaper ad in which she said: “In this new job of mine I am inspired by the fact that in our publishing plant 70 newspaper men have joined the armed forces.”

She took on the beats the men left behind – city hall, the police, the courts, the stockyards. She averaged about 13 stories a day – most without bylines.

Powers and the other newsroom women were popular with soldiers stationed in Spokane-area bases. They lined up outside The Spokesman-Review building most evenings to take the newspaper women dancing after deadline. Friends introduced her to a pilot, Elwood Powers of Tennessee, and they married after he returned from fighting in the war.

Unlike other women who left their good jobs after the war ended, Powers stayed at The Spokesman-Review and thrived. She experienced her stories, rather than report them from her desk. She checked herself into Eastern State Hospital, undercover, to write about the mentally ill in the understaffed institution. She had herself confined to Spokane’s former women’s jail to show the poor conditions. She hung out in hobo camps to understand the life of men who hopped on and off trains. In 1958, she flew in a KC-135 out of Fairchild Air Force Base, the first woman allowed to fly on a Strategic Air Command jet.

Powers quickly became Spokane’s best-known and beloved journalist.

By 1960, she was ready for a change. She ran for Congress as a Republican but lost in the primary. She tried again in 1966, won the primary, but lost in the general election to Tom Foley, who later became speaker of the House.

Powers took a leave of absence from the paper during both political bids, but she felt “frozen out” by one editor when she returned. Her column was taken away. She was relegated to editing letters to the editor.

“I learned to hang on when you are really discouraged,” she later said of that time.

Powers regained her column, and her fame, and in 1977 was named editorial page editor, the first woman in the paper’s history to hold that prestigious spot. Under her pen, the Christmas Bureau became an institution, dispensing toys, food vouchers and holiday hope to thousands of Inland Northwest people each year. Powers won many prestigious journalism prizes, including the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award for Newspaper Writing.

Still, she sometimes bristled when readers mistook her for Dorothy Dean, the pseudonym for the women who wrote recipe stories for The Spokesman-Review in the 1950s and ’60s.

“Remember me as Dorothy Powers, the reporter, and not Dorothy Dean, the cook,” she once told Paula Davis, a Spokane funeral director and friend.

Though she and Elwood chose not to have children, Powers was godmother to many and opened her door when young people knocked for advice and encouragement.

Floyd remembered when his daughter attended Sacajawea Middle School and had no grandparents living in town to invite to a Grandparents Day event, so she invited Powers.

“Dorothy was just tickled,” Floyd said. “She had a fondness, I think, for knowing people she worked with and knowing their families.”

When she retired in January 1988, she vowed to close the newspaper chapter of her life and move on. She did. She wrote two books – a column compilation “Powers to the People” and a history of famous people buried in Spokane cemeteries, commissioned by the Fairmount Memorial Association.

It was through her work on her second book that she met Murphy and Davis. The funeral home often hosts luncheons, including lunches for the Red Hat Ladies, and Powers was a regular attendee. Murphy would often pick her up and she always wanted him to pick her up in a hearse.

During those lunches Powers often was the guest of honor and would autograph her book.

“People were so excited to meet her,” Davis said. “We just had some wonderful times with her.”

Powers would send Davis a handwritten thank-you note after each lunch.

“I have every one of them,” she said.

In the early years of Powers’ retirement, she and Elwood traveled, socialized with friends and with the people they rented apartments to in their historic Browne’s Addition home. Powers also skied and spent time at their Hayden Lake place. She supported the University of Montana’s School of Journalism, donating money for a classroom in honor of her father.

In her late 80s, Powers’ life narrowed. Elwood’s health deteriorated, as did her own. She battled back problems that stemmed, in part, from decades of curving her back toward typewriters and computers.

Elwood’s death, in July 2011, shattered her. She lost her lifelong companion, and she withdrew more. Powers, however, always ventured out in July when the Friends of the Davenport gathered at Riverside Cemetery to pay tribute to Louis Davenport of hotel fame.

But during her 93 years, there was one thing Powers never got to do. Murphy owns a 1939 Packard Super 8 Henney Hearse and Powers always wanted a ride in it. Murphy was willing, but somehow it never worked out.

A funeral has yet to be scheduled at St. John’s Cathedral, but Murphy vows that when it happens, Powers will arrive in the classic hearse. “She’ll get her ride,” he said.

At the end of her 1988 retirement interview, Powers said something that likely resonates with readers who remember the newspaper legacy of Dorothy Rochon Powers.

“Endings are always sad,” she said. “If you end something without feeling sad, it hasn’t meant much to you.”