About a week ago a colleague and I were discussing Les Schwab and how we’d cover his death. I didn’t know then that the Oregon tire tycoon was in failing health. A few days later he died. This other editor and I had the same reaction: call the newsroom and lobby to get the story on Page 1. It was the right call.
Schwab was truly a ubiquitous icon of retail in the West. He’s up there with Meier & Frank, Fred Meyer and Nordstrom – all Northwest retailers who built their stores into empires. But with more than 410 outlets and 7,700 employees today, Schwab stood atop the tire heap.
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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