Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published April 13, 2005

We columnists owe Ernie Pyle thanks

In January I received a request from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists to contact Gov. Bredesen's office and ask if he would proclaim April 18, 2005 as National Columnists Day in the state of Tennessee. A month later a packet containing that proclamation arrived. My typewritten request stated the exact words National Columnists Day but someone in the proclamation department changed the wording to The National Society of Columnists.

When I attend our annual meeting in June I will apologize and take my copy of the request to prove the mistake took place in Nashville. Regardless, I hope next Monday readers will take a moment to think about the columnists they read regularly. They are a vital part of every newspaper but they also make significant contributions to their communities and to the journalism profession.

The idea for such a day of recognition came from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSCS). Founded in 1977 it is the only professional association in journalism devoted solely to columnists. Its membership includes columnists on papers large and small throughout the United States and Canada. In 1994 the organization approved the date of April 18, the day Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese machine-gun bullet on IE Shima in 1945. The first NCD was observed on April 18, 1995, the 50th anniversary of Pyle's death at age 44.

This group of professional columnists wholeheartedly approved that date because as a member from Alabama said, "The truth is that selecting April 18 as National Columnists Day, we selected a day not so much for ourselves as we did for Ernie Pyle. He was, quite simply, the best of us."

To begin to understand what Pyle meant to ordinary Americans during WWII we must remember the conditions just 60 years ago. The technologies children take for granted now were still in the future. There were no cell phones, no computers, no TV and even radio was still in its infancy. Newspapers were our main source for news.

During WWII there was heavy censorship leaving the general population with little knowledge of failures or progress. It took Ernie Pyle, a gifted columnist who wrote from the heart, to keep those on the homefront informed. A native of rural Indiana Pyle connected with ordinary people.

Long before embedding was a familiar term Pyle used that method to get close to GI Joes. He became as one biographer said, "America's eyewitness to WWII." Another columnist described him a "a surrogate for his readers -- their representative." His columns were like letters back home filled with words that painted a realistic picture of war. The public trusted him and sent thousands of letters. Many were pleas for him to find their loved one and give him a message.

The late Jerry Thompson, the Tennessean's beloved columnist, wrote a column before his death in support of National Columnist Day and Ernie Pyleís legacy. "Whatever Pyle wrote about, it made a lasting impression in the minds of his readers. Iím glad to be a columnist and do whatever I can to keep alive the memory of a fellow columnist who set the heights the rest of us strive to reach."

A big thank you to readers! Without you there would be no columnists.

· · ·
Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.