A devotion to serving our region

One hundred and five years ago, a glorious brick ruin, six stories tall, stood on a Tacoma bluff 240 feet above Commencement Bay.

It had been conceived in 1890 as the finest hotel north of San Francisco, but the panic of 1893 had killed the financing and halted construction. Five years later, the interior caught fire, producing a colossal blaze visible from Olympia to Seattle. Little was left inside but ashes and twisted steel girders. The Tacoma Daily Ledger described the burned-out shell as “gaunt and spectre-like.”

But the towering brick walls remained. In February 1903, the Northern Pacific Railroad – which owned the ruins – began quarrying the millions of bricks to build train stations in Montana and Idaho.

That proved the catalyst that produced the most architecturally distinctive school in the United States. A School Board member, Charles Drury, saw the facade coming down and realized that an opportunity was being lost. He and other board members began exploring whether the grand derelict could be reborn an equally grand high school.

Many people had roles in the creation of Stadium High School, but The Ledger and The News – The News Tribune’s predecessors – did for the project what only newspapers could do.

Simple, straight news coverage was essential. Reporters followed the plan in detail from day to day, documenting the condition of the building, the engineering assessments, the district’s pressing need for a new high school to replace its overcrowded old one. Most Tacomans got most of their information on the plan from either The Ledger or The News.

Public support swelled, and the district bought the building from the Northern Pacific. The Ledger editorialized: “In the end, this deal will save money, and the district will have a building far more commodious and imposing and suitable than would have been regarded as within its means if construction had to begin at the foundation.”

The editorial also expressed hope that the ultimate design “will have regard to artistic effect,” because no other school in the world “could have a site more ideal in its beauty.” That hope was fully realized in the finished building, which must be the only high school on Earth that can pass for a French chateau – turrets, spires and all.

These are ways a newspaper builds a community: as a provider of information, forum of ideas, a catalyst of public opinion and – in its editorial columns – a relentless champion of civic improvements. Engaging the citizens is essential to democracy: The more people who get involved in solving a problem, the better the solution will be.

Often, newspapers actually help define communities and regions. One of the few things that give the disparate cities and neighborhoods of the South Sound a common identity is the shared medium of the The News Tribune.

Sometimes a newspaper is even a prime mover. After Tacoma’s new high school was finished in 1906, for example, The News and The Ledger led a subscription drive that raised nearly $50,000 to fill in a deep ravine and create a 2.6-acre, horseshoe-shaped bowl overlooking the bay. “Stadium” High thus acquired its name; at the time, it may have been the only high school in the country to have a stadium.

In the years since, The News Tribune’s leadership has created or helped other local institutions, such as the annual Sound to Narrows race, the American Leadership Forum and the Pierce County Adult Literacy Coalition.

The News Tribune’s news staff strengthens the communities it serves by reporting what’s happening in them; this helps residents stay informed and participate in such big decisions as the creation of a new high school. News coverage is the foundation of commentary and – often – of community action.

The editorial board, which is independent of the news operation, acts as an outright advocate. The editorials in the opinion section are its responsibility. For 125 years now, those editorials have focused on ways to change things for the better.

There’s not much this newspaper doesn’t care about. Its predecessors fought to restore Mount Rainier’s original Indian name, which, in fact, was something close to “Tacoma.” In the World War I era, the paper pushed for the creation of Fort Lewis – which has been an invaluable asset since.

More recently, The News Tribune’s editorialists successfully battled the foul-smelling Tideflats emissions that had made the “Aroma of Tacoma” a damaging regional joke. They defended the popular Foothills Trail against a 1991 referendum that would have killed it. The News Tribune’s reporters have repeatedly drawn public attention to surges in violence, such as the alarming rise in gang-related crime on Tacoma’s East Side in 2006.

In the 1980s, the editorial page pressed the Legislature to create the University of Washington Tacoma for the sake of would-be South Sound college students who had no other degree options. It fought for the school’s expansion and in 2001 helped secure legislative funding for the UWT’s Institute of Technology.

The editorial board has been a cheerleader for major community improvements across the South Sound. At the beginning of each year, the editorial board publishes a civic agenda outlining its highest priorities.

In 1993, for example, the agenda argued that “city and state officials should continue to give high priority to the rehabilitation of the Union Station district, the creation of a new state historical museum, the development of the Broadway theater district and the establishment of condominiums and other private residences in downtown Tacoma.”

That has all happened. The News Tribune didn’t make it happen, but it certainly helped.

Elsewhere, the editorial pages have urged improvements big and small: a bike trail on Bonney Lake’s Fennel Creek, ballfields at Bradley Lake Park in Puyallup, better emergency services in Sumner, the purchase and development of the vast Chambers Creek park in University Place, the Mel Korum YMCA on South Hill, emergency trauma care at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup, an overhaul of the Sprinker Recreation Center in Spanaway.

These pages have also fought problems big and small, including uncontrolled sprawl that has choked roads and overwhelmed schools, the threatened draining of Lake Tapps, crack-dealing gangs in Tacoma, nitrates in Bonney Lake springs, highway congestion, the disappearance of farmlands, a monstrous billboard on River Road that violated Puyallup’s sign code.

None of this advocacy came out of the blue. As with the creation of Stadium High School, straight news reporting first identified the issues and provided the factual context.

The News Tribune’s engagement with its communities doesn’t end with what’s printed in the newspaper. Through its marketing department, the company donated more than $1 million in 2007 – in cash and in-kind advertising – to charities, community events, children’s assistance, the arts and various fundraisers. Its employees volunteer their time and money to PTAs, sports leagues, churches, food banks, Scout groups and other key institutions.

The News Tribune is not the newspaper of the South Sound; it is the newspaper for the South Sound. We are passionate about the communities we serve – and proud of it. This hasn’t changed since The Ledger and The News led the effort a century ago to create a stadium for a new high school.

A good newspaper cares. This newspaper does.

Editorials represent the views of The News Tribune’s editorial board. Members include Cheryl Dell, publisher; David Zeeck, executive editor and vice president for news; David Seago, editorial page editor; Patrick O’Callahan, chief editorial writer, and Cheryl Tucker and Kim Bradford, editorial writers.