Straight shooter

Spokesman-Review photographer Steve Thompson spent the last part of his career taking intimate pictures of Spokane Valley life; the type of photos that get posted on refrigerators and mailed to out-of-town grandparents.

Cameras slung over his shoulder, Thompson became a familiar sight at high school basketball games, kindergarten classes, incorporation rallies, fires and drug busts during the 16 years he spent as the Spokane Valley bureau’s chief photographer.

Thompson, 61, turned in his cameras last week after a four-decade career as an award-winning newspaper photographer. In retirement, he plans to work around the house, get his fishing boat seaworthy again and, most important, spend quality time with his family.

Thompson viewed himself as storyteller. He wanted to accurately and honestly illustrate stories without any pretense, something he called, “straight newspaper photography.”

Thompson was famous among fellow reporters and photographers for being the first on the scenes of fires and bank robberies. Thompson found ways around roadblocks and alarmed more than one passenger (usually a reporter) by loading film into his cameras while speeding toward an unfolding news event.

He took interest in firefighters, beat cops and soccer moms. He endeared himself to school secretaries such as Sue Mellish, who works at South Pines Elementary School.

“I love Steve,” Mellish said. “The kids love him. He’s just easygoing, friendly, kind. He’s probably one of the nicest people I’ve met.”

Thompson feels passionately about the importance of community journalism.

“I think it’s important that we explain our neighbors to our neighbors,” Thompson said in a recent interview.

Thompson said he’s been honored that people would invite him into their lives to view both tears and celebrations.

“What more could a person ask for? How many people get to be a witness to that?” Thompson asked recently.

Thompson turned a childhood hobby into a career when he got his first job at a staff photographer at a small newspaper in Marion, Ind., in 1964. From there, he went to Evansville and then on to the Detroit, which he describes as a “great news town.” Both the first and last week of his six years at the Detroit Free Press, he photographed police shoot-outs. He spent 18 months of Saturday nights following a police unit that used decoys to try and catch robbers.

After the Free Press, Thompson headed West, working both in Eugene, Ore., and Lewiston, Idaho, before coming to Spokane in October 1980 as photo editor for The Spokesman-Review. He went back to shooting full-time when The Spokesman-Review and Spokane Daily Chronicle merged staffs a few years later.

Although much of Thompson’s recent work appeared in the Valley Voice and Valley section of The Spokesman-Review, some highlights of his career come from stories beyond the borders of Spokane Valley.

In November of 1982, Thompson and reporter Jim Camden traveled to Korea, Hong Kong, Bombay and Thailand with Heal the Children. The medical group was there to look for children abroad who could benefit from medical treatment in the United States and Canada.

Several years later, Thompson and reporter Carla Johnson spent several years following the story of Kara Claypool, a young girl with AIDS. It was a heartbreaking assignment because both knew Kara would eventually die, Johnson said. Thompson always had the right temperament in dealing with the emotional story. He knew when to be a fly on the wall, or when to pat someone on the back and never injected himself into the story, Johnson said.

One of Thompson’s favorite assignments was the record-cold June of 1995 he spent on the Columbia River with reporter Dan Hansen. The two were in an inflatable rubber boat with a small outboard motor. Water was constantly coming over the bow, and at one point the two were so cold and wet, they became hypothermic. Yet they both found amazing stories along the route.

“When we were doing it, every day brought new misery, but when we were done it was a wonderful experience,” Hansen said.

Hansen and Thompson worked together in the Valley. Thompson always had the attitude that he was going out in the community to tell a story, Hansen said. He never detached himself from the community he covered, and that’s what made him so good, Hansen said.

Thompson said the search for the next picture kept him interested day to day. He predicts that after puttering around for awhile, he’ll miss what he calls “newspapering.”

“The thing I did was never important,” Thompson said. “It was the story I was trying to tell that was important.”